A Lace Scarf

A friend: "isn't making lace done by tatting?". Well that's one way. Also bobbin lace, crochet, and knitting.



I've been wanting to try knitted lace. The Branching Out scarf pattern seemed a good place to start - it had all the lace techniques (well, most of them, and all the common ones) in it, and, in theory, wasn't a hard project.

I had a large amount of Schaefer Anne fingering weight yarn leftover from some socks, by weight it appeared to be sufficient.

And so I cast on, and started out. Having learned from the Pink Ribbon Socks that it is really annoying to rip the whole thing out when you've made a mistake and can't figure out how to fix it, I put in lifelines after each pattern repeat (10 rows). The first 6 repeats were error-free. Piece of cake. I almost did not put in a lifeline after repeat 6. Good think I did - I think I did repeat 7 at least 5 times.



Error analysis showed that something was going wrong between pattern rows 3 and 5. I'd probably forget a yarn over.

My error correction techniques involved blowing up the lace chart so it was more easily readable and marking out logical (to me) groups of stitches, putting markers in the knitting, and running an additional lifeline after row 4. And slavishly counting stitches at the end of each row.

It worked, and I proceeded along with much less ripping out. My plan was to use up the yarn, so I kept doing repeats until it looked like I wouldn't have enough for a repeat and the five final rows, and bound it off last night.



Blocking wires had been borrowed from friend K; it is now blocking on the floor in a spare bedroom. It looks way cool.