Update

Well, all of the sudden my lace shawl seems to have grown enormously. I'm just about to do my increase round which will take me to 576 stitches. I am so excited. Having done a few jumpers with lace detailing, my lace socks and now this shawl; I feel like it was just too easy a project. Now I know that I needed an easy shawl to get confident. It's done, I feel confident. It's difficult to know how big it will be when I I wash it and block it so i think that I will do a few more repeats after the increase. I am very excited.

Lacy socks

Well, I did say to myself that this would be the year of lace! And it is.
I've just finished my first pair of lacy socks. I have made a fair few pairs of socks since I learned how to four years ago; but of course this is my first lacy pair.
I'm so pleased with them. The pattern is from Barbara Walker's treasury of stitches. I chose the horse shoe pattern. Its quite simple as it's only an 8 pattern repeat. I designed the sock and the only scary bit was once I had turned the heel and I had to rearrange the lace pattern on the instep only. After a couple of attempts, it worked.
I'm so glad that I started with socks. It has really been worthwhile. I feel very confident and I'm going full speed with my pi shawl now. The cuff is 2x2 rib and the toe is a wedge toe with a beautifully grafted end. Yay! So if you have been wanting to try lace for a while but haven't dared...just give it a try. As my friends had said to me, all you need is a quiet place, a good way to mark where you on your pattern are and a pattern that's not too difficult to start with.

Things that keep me humble

I am so absolutely determined to get good at lace. I have now embarqued on a challenging lace shawl project. I am doing a pi shawl as per Elizabeth Zimmermann intructions. I was just going to make it plain in between increases but as my friend said..."it's not that hard you know" so I took that as a challenge and here goes. I hope to finish it this year so that when my eldest daughter Emily decides to start a family she will have a shawl for the baby and it can stay in the family as an heirloom.

I am knitting it in a natural thinner than 2 ply wool. Am not really into natural colours but I might be able to dye it later.

I will have to keep blogging aboot it so that people don't think I've forgotten about it.