lace diamonds

I am back in NY. It is good to be with the pets and good to have access to all of my things and nice to not be running around or sitting in a car.

But the trip was great and it's hard to go back to day to day life after such a fantastic vacation. Blog coverage of the event shall be in two parts.

To whet you appetite a bit let's start with that heirloom lace.

I suggested a while back that I might knit a garter for Chelsea's wedding. That perhaps it would be purple and silk.

Well, living in the backwoods of NY cut down my yarn options, and I went with white merino wool instead of purple silk, but I did knit a garter for Chelsea. Even better, it fit. And best of all she wore it proudly.

Chelsea's Diamonds

Project Specs~

Yarn: Laceweight Merino Wool

Needles: My superslick Addi Turbo US 0s circular needle. The needles were probably a little too slick for the work I was doing. There were at least half a dozen instances where either Abby or Brett, or (yes) I myself jerked a needle a little too hard and pulled out all my stitches.

Pattern: My own design, just for Chels, based on a lace design published in a free download by Interweave, first published in the January/February 1997 issue of PieceWork. The lace edging I used was romantically titled Rule 58 Lace Edging, originally from Florence Home Needle-work published in 1887 by Nonotuck Silk Company. I used this pattern for the bottom half of the lace, ran a pair of (YO, K2tog) down the middle so I could lace a ribbon through the garter, and I did a very simple eyelet on the upper ruffle for a little bit of garter stitch calm in the storm of all those lace diamonds.

Size: About 30 inches of lace, gathered to fit the bride.

Reflections: Writing my own chart for this pattern absolutely saved my life. No way would I have ever finished if I needed to read the instructions for every row. Probably would have slipped the first stitch on the eyelet side for a more perfect edging. Would have chosen a more easily memorized pattern so that I could work on it without toting the pattern with me, but for heirloom lace, putting in the extra effort made perfect sense.

I felt rushed to get this done, mostly due to bad project timing thanks to un-lace related life stuff, and next wedding I'll need to make sure I have it done about a week ahead of time so I can give some thought to the blocking, finishing, and presentation. The last stitches in this went into it on the road to the Minnesota and the last blocking pin came out about an hour before I gave it to the bride. She seemed please though, and a gift knitter couldn't ask for anything more.