Lace Knitting

The weather is warming up (a bit) and people are beginning to say things to me like “I only knit in winter”, so my thoughts have been turning towards lighter knits, and the lightest of all is Lace Knitting.

Lace knitting is characterised by ‘holes’ in the knitted fabric, arranged in patterns so that it has aesthetic value. It is sometimes thought to be the pinnacle of knitting, because of its complexity and because woven fabrics cannot easily be made to have holes. It seems that there is a difference between Lace knitting where you have the patterns on both sides and ‘lacy’ knitting where the lace pattern is on the knit side and every alternate row is purled, but I cannot find any direct evidence of this actually being an issue, and suspect it might be a knitting snob thing, so I am going to call all knitting with holes in it ‘Lace Knitting’.

One of the most well known types of Lace Knitting is to be found in Shetland, where famously there can be found patterns for shawls so fine that they can be drawn through wedding rings. I have mentioned my longing to make such a shawl previously – it is still definitely on the list, but I suspect it will take a lot of time and concentration. Not TV friendly knitting for sure. I have some amazing Vintage Shetland Lace patterns in the shop along with Jamieson & Smith 1 and 2plyShetland lace wool in the hope that one day I will get around to it. It appears that Shetland knitted lace became very popular in England when Queen Victoria became an enthusiast, resulting in her giving lace shawls as presents, including to the American abolitionist, Harriet Tubman. Subsequently, knitting patterns for shawls were printed in English women’s magazines and were then copied in Iceland where they also spun fine single ply wool.

Another famous type of knitted lace textile is the Orenburg Shawl – made in Russia from goat fibre (similar to cashmere or mohair) blended with silk. In particular, the wool usually comes from the Guberlinskoy breed of goats, famous for the light, warm, silky long hair fibre. The goats are brushed each spring, each one providing about 500g of fibre which is then hand spun on a spindle and plied with a commercial silk thread that helps hold the shape of the lace and prevents it from needing to be blocked, unlike Shetland wool shawls which have to be blocked on a frame. The yarn is then knitted into shawls of varying sizes and in varying geometric designs. It seems that the shawls originated around 250 years ago in the Orenburg area, and they too are fine enough to be drawn through wedding rings.

Of course Lace Knitting is not limited to shawls. There are many gorgeous scarves out there, like the one we are knitting in the Lace Knitting workshop on 13 April (pictured below), and pretty summer tops, or jumpers like the Love Note which we all knitted last year as a knitalong, which has a delicate lace yoke and is knitted top down.

Regulars in my shop will know that as well as the Shetland Lace wool, we stock mohair and silk laceweight yarns of super softness, but usually people hold it together with a thicker yarn to create a fluffy fabric (as in the Love Note) rather than knit garments using it alone. For those who do not like mohair, we have West Yorkshire Spinners Exquisite Lace – a 2 ply made of a blend of Falklands wool and silk -superbly soft and luxurious. One of our customers recently knitted a Shetland style shawl in this wool and it was gorgeous. I also now have Malabrigo’s Silkpaca, which is a blend of baby alpaca and silk in a 2ply lace and is amazingly soft with a lovely drape to it.

I of course, do not stop knitting just because the weather is better and obviously, I rather hope the same goes for all of you! I finished a pair of socks this week and have lined up the next pair on my needles.

Have a good weekend.