Monniblog

You may or may not know that I’m not a big lace knitter, although I am in total awe of how beautiful it is. but that’s what’s so great about this little book (if you can call it that). Lace Knitting to Go by Andrea Tung is like a lace stitch dictionary… in a box. It’s a great (and sturdy) box with “25 lovely laces to use for edgings, embellishments, and more”. All the patterns come out in individual cards, and it’s very well designed — obvious to see what the stitch looks like, and then the instructions and details on the inside.

I liked that the instructions came in both row-by-row, and chart form. They also listed a difficulty rating, but I didn’t find it very helpful (for the patterns I tried) as it just depends if you know how to knit into the backs of stitches, or do yarn overs, etc. Also, the abbreviations were only listed on the “intro” card which included stuff about the kit and all that. So when I grabbed needles, yarn, and a pattern literally To Go, I got stuck 4 rows in because I didn’t recognize an abbreviation.

However, I really liked how they gave you the stitches plain and simple so that you could create something of your own. If you really enjoy lace-y goodness and want a stitch dictionary dedicated to just that, this is a great little box set. There was a good mix of lace-like stitches, really delicate patterns, and edgings.

Now, althought I don’t knit lace persay… I love lace-like stitches in washclothes, so I broke out the cotton and my trusty 5mm, and started knitting! This post has been sitting in “draft” mode for literally months. I wanted to try a couple more stitches, but I just haven’t had the time / desire to cast on for new projects. Here is what I managed to try, and I love how it turned out:

Full disclosure: I received this book from Raincoast Books here in Canada when they found out I was a local knitter and book blog reviewer (Raincoast is located in Vancouver). Raincoast distributes for other publishers such as Chronicle Books, the publisher of Lace Knitting To Go.