One of the most-asked questions in knitting land is: How do I do shaping in lace?
Great question, as lace already has decreases and increases all over
the place! How do you add extra decreases or increases without messing
up the prettiness?
Papyrus Lace from Lace & Eyelets
One
easy way is to use changes in needle size to accomplish your
shaping—this way, no extra increases/decreases are needed. Let the
gauge do the heavy lifting, in other words.
If, however, you are using a pattern where gauge changes aren't
suitable, then you have to figure out how to add the increases and
decreases into the lace pattern itself.
Lace patterns are (usually) formed by paired increases and decreases: for
every yarnover, somewhere nearby there is a decrease. It helps to use a
pencil to lightly circle the paired decreases/yarnovers in your pattern
so you can clearly see which stitches "belong together."
These pairs are critical in terms of maintaining both the integrity
of the lace pattern and the overall stitch count of the row. Always
keep these pairs together. If you don't have enough stitches to work an
entire pair, then forget about working the pair and treat the stitches
as though they were plain stockinette.
Example: Decreasing
Let's use this simple lace pattern as our example:
Row 1: *K1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 2: Purl.
When you "pair up" the decreases and yarnovers, you can see that this pattern has two halves to it:
K1, yo, k2, ssk —— and then —— k2tog, k2, yo.
To work the first half properly, you need five stitches; to work the
second half properly, you need four stitches. So besides noting where
the "pairs" are, you also need to note where they are in relationship
to each other. It helps to break the pattern up into sections, with one yarnover/decrease pair per section.
Now we're ready to start decreasing. For simplicity, we're only going to talk about decreases at the beginning of Row 1.
Notice that a decrease at the beginning of that row will use up both
the k1 and the first stitch of the k2, "stepping over" the space where
you normally would work a yarnover. The solution? Forget about the
yarnover AND its mate, the ssk, treating the ssk as two stockinette
stitches. In fact, while you work your decrease, you are going to treat
that entire first half as five stockinette stitches, as follows:
Ssk——the initial k1 and first half of the original k2,
k1——the second half of the original k2,
k2——the original ssk,
k2tog, k2, yo; and then continue on with the second half of the repeat and the rest of the row.
After the first decrease row, you no longer have enough stitches to
work the first half of the lace pattern (you have four, you need five),
so work them as stockinette. (However, you can continue to work the
second half—the next four stitches—in the lace pattern.) On subsequent
rows, work decreases as needed in that stockinette block until you
arrive at a row where you have to use the first stitch of the k2tog (in
the second half of the repeat) for part of the next decrease. On that
row, you'd then treat all four of the second-half stitches as
stockinette.
Here are the decrease rows written out for clarity's sake:
Row 1: *K1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 2 and all wrong side rows: Purl.
Row 3: Ssk, k3, k2tog, k2, yo; *k1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 5: Ssk, k2, k2tog, k2, yo; *k1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 7: Ssk, k1, k2tog, k2, yo; *k1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 9: Ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; *k1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 11: Ssk, k1, k2; *k1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
Row 13: Ssk, k2; *k1, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo; rep from * to end.
And you can take it from there yourselves!
REMINDER: Last Day to Download the Readers' Choice Top Five is Wednesday, May 14!
Free Download: Readers' Choice Top Five
You voted for them, and now there's only three days left to make sure you have your (free) copy of The Readers' Choice Top Five Patterns
before they disappear from our free library forever. Don't miss these
wonderful patterns: Kate Gilbert's Sunrise Circle Jacket, Norah
Gaughan's Tweedy Aran Cardigan as well as her Nantucket Jacket, Evelyn
A. Clark's Swallowtail Shawl, and Stefanie Japel's Cable-Down Raglan.
You'll be sad if you forget to download them, so why not do it now?
Sandi Wiseheart is the editor of Knitting Daily.
What's on Sandi's needles? With a couple of projects
marinating in the Naughty Corner, and several pregnant friends, I spent
the weekend knitting boooooooties. I adore booooooooties.