Lace Knitting 101 with Easy Lace Knits

Break out your sharp tip needles and get ready for some lace knitting with Easy Lace Knits. In this book you will find 20 beautiful lace patterns. Haven’t tried lace before but have always wanted to? This will be the perfect book for you.

*This post contains affiliate links. By clicking on one of these links and making a purchase a portion will go to the blog. The price you pay will not change and the small commission I receive helps me to keep brining you free content and giveaways on the blog. Thank you for your continued support.*

Inside Easy Lace Knits:

Starting off when you open the book you are taken through the basics of lace knitting. This book is truly beginner friendly and doesn’t leave any stone unturned. First you will go through the basics of reading a lace pattern. Not only will you find written instructions in this book but you will also find charted instructions. This is great, in my opinion, because it covers all of the bases and helps you learn how to read the other version if you don’t already.

After you learn how to read the pattern the book covers yarn substitution. Here the book talks about fiber content and fiber thickness when making a substitution. Next you will hear about the importance of swatching. A swatch for lace knitting can tell you SO much about the project before you even get started.

Learning How to Knit Lace:

Knitting is made up of a combination of knits and purl stitches. By changing the order you work the stitches and how many stitches you have you get great pattern variations. Cabling is when you change the position of stitches to get a twisted look. Lace knitting is when you add holes into your project at predetermined spots.

Yes, that is right. I said that in lace knitting you are adding holes to your work, on purpose! In Easy Lace Knits you will find a section of how to complete the different methods of intentionally adding the holes to your pattern. By working a yarn over, a make 1 and some other stitches you can create all of the lace patterns in this book.

The Right Tools for Lace Knitting:

As with most things in life it really comes down to the tools that you are using to make your experience better. For lace knitting you will typically, but not always, working with finer yarn. Really you will need a yarn that has good stitch definition so that you can see the lace work. The yarn is an important part of the equation when knitting lace because it will impact your fabric.

For lace knitting you will want to use fiber that is going to be soft and drapey as you work it. The best way to find out if your fiber will do the trick is to swatch. Swatching will also tell you if the needles that you selected to use will be the best for your project.

Everyone has a preference for the length of needles, circular vs. straight and other featured to their needles. For lace knitting you will want to consider the tips of your needles. May people prefer to use a sharper point when working lace so that they can easily work the thinner yarn. This will be something that you need to test out through swatching to see which fits you best.

Looking for a great set of sharp tip needles? Be sure to check out the Yarn Thing Podcast episode that I just did with Signature Needles. Learn about their process and their super pointy Stiletto tip needles.

Tips for Lace Knitting:

Tips and tricks from the experienced knitter really do make a beginners life much easier. When knitting lace I always use a lifeline, I learned this the hard way.

Using a lifeline is the simple concept of adding a scrap piece of yarn at a designated row that you know is completed correctly. You use a lifeline in case you would make a mistake later on. The lifeline allows you to rip back your work to that point, where you know it was last correct. Within the book you can learn more about how to place a lifeline, when to place a lifeline and how they work.

Stitch markers are also great for knitting lace. They again allow you to keep track of where you are in the pattern. Use stitch markers to note when the repeat starts or where a decrease is. Stitch markers can help you read your work. Reading your work is so important with lace to make sure that things are correct and also how to figure out where they might have gone wrong.

Blocking Your Lace Knitting:

So far in this review we have mentioned a lot of the bad words of knitting. We talked about thin yarn, swatching, holes in your knitting and now blocking!

Blocking is ESSENTIAL to all lace knit projects. Through the process of blocking you are able to open up the stitches and see the true pattern that you have created. Blocking allows your fabric to relax and showcase all of the hard work that you just completed. Please don’t skip this step, you will be disappointed if you do.

Purchase Your Copy of Easy Lace Knits:

Giveaway:

Here is your chance to get your own copy of Easy Lace Knits. The giveaway will run through midnight MST on August 21st.

FINE PRINT: Giveaway is only open to US residents. You must enter your name and email address into the Raffelcopter form so that we can contact the winner. We will not sell your email address and you will not automatically be put on our mailing list. Should you want to be on the mailing list please use the link below in the Follow Marly section below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also on the Blog:

Follow Marly: