Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Well, not much sleep, as predicted, and not much result, either. Some BBC pundit said yesterday what was beginning to worry me: is the Democratic party going to cleave itself asunder with all this, while the Republicans rally, however glumly, behind McCain? But I heard Howard Dean during the night say, no, this is fine, because it gives the nation a chance really to get to know the candidates.

I’ll let you know what I decide about tee-shirt-buying.

Meanwhile, Kathleen, that’s a good question, what is there to read about lace? And I don’t know the answer.

There is Margaret Stove’s book, “Designing Your Own Hand-Knitted Lace”. It has some good chapters about the structure of lace and the different effects of knitting it at different gauges. That is essentially the ground Shirley Paden covers in the article in the current VK, and I like her idea of referring to “single-sided” and “double-sided” lace.

Margaret Stove calls the two “knitted lace” and “lace knitting” (or else vice versa) and I cannot be the only knitter unable to remember which is which for 30 consecutive seconds.

But I can’t think that I’ve ever read anything about incorporating lace motifs in garment design, and that’s what I’m hoping for from SP next time.

Not much here. I went out to a committee meeting last night, advanced the current sock a few more rounds, but inevitably neglected the gansey. And it looks as if I’m going to have to knit remorselessly on, no idling away Sunday with scarves and hats and swatching linen stitch for the swallowtail coat.

I’m going to meet my friend Helen for coffee tomorrow. (John Lewis’s yarn dept. will be the assignation point.) I am desperately impressed that Kristin Nicholas describes Helen as a friend. She is very clever about computers as well as knitting, and may be able to teach me how to capture buttons for my sidebar.

4 comments:

  1. Miriam Felton at http://mimknits.com/wordpress/ has some nice lace design tutorials listed in her sidebar (under Lace Reference Shelf), which are interesting, thorough, and well illustrated.

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  2. Anonymous7:34 PM

    If you can get your hands on it, _Knitting Lace_ by Susanna E. Lewis would be worth a look. The book starts with patterns (charted and written out) for the 92 patterns in an antique lace sampler, and then goes on to discuss bias effects, chevrons (24 variations), combining lace elements for an all-over pattern, designing and charting lace, and then gives patterns for four garments that incorporate lace motifs. From the prices on amazon, I gather this is a difficult book to find, but perhaps you could get a copy through your library or a local knitting guild.

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  3. It's all very intriguing, this election but am I alone when I say that the more I watch Clinton as the campaign continues, the more I feel irritated?

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  4. If I were close enough to John Lewis' in Edinburgh, I would meet the both of you! Hope you had fun.

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