University of Lace at Ceallach Castle

A few weeks ago, POPT and I went shopping. Well, it was kind of a field trip.

We went to Lacis and the Lace museum, had lunch and generally puttered around Oakland and Berkeley.

I bought a number of books at Lacis, including Evelyn Clark's Knitting Lace Triangles and a Japanese knitting book on cats, that has some very cute charts. Including one very large one with a cat coming round the body of a sweater that I first saw on ebay years ago, and lusted after but did not win. That book is now in my possession so that if ever I decide to knit a cat sweater after the apocalypse comes, I will be prepared with my charts to preserve the myth of the Knitting Cat.

(The reference to the apocalypse is a nod to my dear Friend GrandmaHatter with whom I have a date for the first food riot after the apocalypse. We plan to be the best dressed post-Apocalyptic hags in our by then vintage silk dresses trimmed with already vintage lace and ribbons.)

But seriously, the other thing that I got at Lacis that day were too very small lovely balls of perle cotton from Romania. They were three dollars and irresistably yummy and I succumbed to their siren call.

Now they are little more than thread. And anyone that knows me knows that I use thread in my sewing machine or my serger, but rarely on my needles or hooks.

So here I am with these lovely little balls of thread I probably will never use.

And fast forward 3 weeks, wherein POPT and I set out again into the Knit and Crochet show. I have been looking for some knitting doily patterns, to knit in larger yarns into larger heftier shawls.

Did you know that knit doilies virtually do not exist?

Well that's what I was starting to think, when the person at the lacy knitting booth showed me The Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffman.

Lo, the Lord created knit doily patterns and it was good.

There may have been angels singing, but I could not hear them as I rummaged through my purse for a plastic credit card to hand to the woman. And she very kindly pointed out the page in the book where my new BFF Mary laid out her curricula for the lacy knitting class that she taught over the course of 10 weeks.

And off I go.

Here is week one. It is called Very Narrow Lace and is actually knit on the diagonal but lengthwise.....a nice trim for well anything, but maybe for a sweater of something. As in knit it and sew it onto a sweater as an embellishment. She presents it as a nice trim for a slip....but darn it, I would want folks to see it, and since I learned not to let folks see my slip.....well I will have to put it on something else.

So here is my Very Narrow Lace knit with Very Loverly Perle Cotton From Romania via Lacis.