Breaking All The Rules About Lace

Last years 10 shawls in 2010 knit-a-long(which has morphed into 11 shawls in 2011) had me dyeing a new line of lace yarns. I dyed a few awesome solids in some of my signature brights. But I tell you what really made my heart sing was the variegated tie dyed yarns that I made on a whim. Variegated lace yarn is generally not a very good idea. So much time and focus is required for lace yarn, that you hate for all that effort to go into a project that will be muddied by the variegation of the colorway. Oh but these yarns were SO pretty!! So I was in search of ways to use my tie dyed lace yarns.

Currently I am trying two patterns The High Seas Shawl and The Curved Shawl. I picked these two patterns because they use a very small repeated pattern with a lot of negative space. Here is how they are knitting up so far

The High Seas Shawl

The Curved Shawl.

Here is what the lace yarn looked like in the skein

All this lace research led me to the book Crazy Lace by Myra Wood.

I almost bought this book 5 times. But each time I leafed through it, I put it back down uninterested. But as I trolled the Ravelry patterns for lace using variegated yarns, I kept coming across some amazing pieces using these techniques. Being out of print, I found a copy used and paid about 3 times what I could have in the stores last year! Worth every penny. This is not a pattern book as much as it is a theory book. A break all the rules, and knit as you see fit kind of book. If I am breaking all the rules about dyeing lace than maybe the shawl I am knitting with the yarn should break all the rules as well. There is an active Ravelry group for Crazy Lace. They are wonderful for encouragement and sharing ideas.

Anyway, my goal is to have a t least one of these shawl ready for Stitches SOUTH in April, since I will have a bunch of tie dyed lace yarns there.