It’s officially summer in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a time to shine a light on new ideas. For me, in this moment, this is perfect time to teach myself to knit…Lace. 

I have always wanted to learn but, initially decided it was too gentile a hobby for me to master. As always whenever I find myself actually admitting to myself that something just might be too much for me; I always deploy an internal mental war. 

“What the hell do you mean this is too hard for you! Get your big girl panties on and figure it out!” (My inner voice seems to say, very nicely and somewhat passive aggressively….)

“Maybe I just don’t want to do it, okay?!!” (I seem to say back)

Annoyingly, and per personal pattern, I found myself stalking Pinterest applications of the knitting techniques until I found a basic lace stitch that was super dummy proof.

This is the most basic of basic patterns I could find:

1: k2, *yo, k2tog….repeat until last 2 stitches then k2

2: purl

3: k2, *k2tog, yo….repeat until last 2 stitches then k2.

4: purl

Lace has a sophistication that is completely unique. You see its influence in everything from fisherman’s nets to the latest wedding dresses. It’s a difficult medium though, it’s so easy to do too much or use the wrong yarn for the stitch and make it look cheap. I have always loved the obvious craftwomanship that has gone into this trade. Even the machine made lace begs you to be in awe of the complex and intelligent design elements.

As you can see, this isn’t a perfect sample. Why would you put “this” in your blog then? (You might ask) Well, I’m interested in having a documentation of the evolution of a specific technique. It might start out messy and perhaps a little ugly but, I know the data points will prove useful for me to look back on in the future. 

Also, I hear it’s good to be humbled….every once in awhile…. I’ll let you know how it goes.