Play with a Fun Lace Stitch Pattern

One thing I love about knitting is all the different ways that a relatively small combination of stitches and techniques can make so many different designs.

I have a long-running obsession with stitch dictionaries, even though I tend to use the same basic stitches over and over when I design. It’s still fun to have all those options and to think about how someone came up with all those different patterns.

This one is shared by Lilia on her blog Lilia Craft Party, where she calls is knitting stitch 18. I’m not sure where this one came from or if it has a more descriptive name. She also described it as being like dancing feathers, which is definitely a nicer name!

It reminds me a bit of candle flame stitch (which I used on a cowl a long time ago and the pattern is no longer available so I need to repost that somewhere!) with a zig-zaggy twist, and it is worked in a similar way. This would be a great stitch to use for a shawl or scarf, or just to play with to have in your arsenal.

You can use any kind of yarn weight but Lilia recommends to use sock or fingering yarn and 3.25mm needles. She also suggests using a row counter to help you keep track of where you are in the pattern, since the repeat is long (29 rows) and it could be easy to get lost if you put your work down in the middle.

This might be a good time to use a lifeline, too, if you’re new to lace knitting and want to make it easier to rip back should you make any mistakes. If you don’t use a lifeline and need to rip back, you can thread a needle through the stitches on one of the wrong-side rows (so you’re not trying to pick up yarn overs) and rip back in the same way. The needle or yarn stops the piece from unraveling further than you’d like and makes it easy to put the stitches back on the needle.

If you want to try this stitch pattern, check it out at Lilia Craft Party.

[Photo: Lilia Craft Party]

This is a project that kind of stopped me in my tracks when I saw it while scrolling Ravelry. It’s such a fun contrast of a semisolid color worked in stockinette stitch and a more tonal yarn worked in a feather and fan variation.

(See more about feather and fan in this post on my blog; I also have a feather and fan scarf if you want to practice.)

The Nitty Wrap from Renate Dziedataja is worked in fingering weight yarn from a Finnish mill, and the name is the Finnish word for meadow. You of course can use whatever yarn you have handy.

It’s even more interesting because the project is worked from one short end across to make a long rectangle, and the two different sections are joined using intarsia. Generally we think of intarsia as being used for colorwork, so this is a fun different use of it. The lace section is charted in the pattern but it’s pretty easy to follow.

And of course it’s totally optional but to add a little more interest and tie the two colors of yarn together the designer also added some embroidery along the short edges on the stockinette side. A drawing of what she did is included but you can also add different designs if you’d rather.

The shawl has I-cord edgings to give it a nice finished look that doesn’t take away from the organic simplicity of the design.

As shown, the shawl measures about 22.5 inches/57 cm wide and 59 inches/150 cm long. You can of course adjust this according to your preference, the amount of yarn you have and the gauge you are getting. Try a thicker yarn to make a wider shawl if you like.

This pattern is available in English and Latvian for free on Ravelry.

Photo: Renate Dziedataja

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