on shaping lace

Vogue Knitted Hoodie-Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece Yarn


The Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting features several beautiful lace pieces.  I (Lydia) am working on "The Hooded Cardigan" on page 73 of the Spring/Summer 2012 issue.  I'm 27 and have been knitting for about 2 years now.  While I really picked up the craft and ran with it, I still have lots to learn about knitting.  Lots.  When I got to the portion of this piece where I had to shape the armholes while continuing with the lace pattern, I panicked!  I mean, if it is an 8 stitch repeat on the lace pattern consisting of yarn overs (increases) and k2tog (decreases) and you bind off your required stitches and end up in the middle of the lace sequence (say you only have to bind off 3 stitches thus are on stitch 4 of the lace pattern), you may have ended up binding off the portion of the sequence where you would have otherwise increased the stitch or decreased the stitch.  So essentially, your stitch count is all out of whack.  So, I emailed Vogue Knitting and they directed me to this article on shaping lace.  They also told me I had to draw out my own chart and figure out, based on the size I selected, how to shape the piece by making it seem as if a portion of the fabric was removed, in other words, not shift the lace repeat even though your binding off may have altered the starting position of your lace sequence.  I still was confused after I read it, so if you are too don't be alarmed!  I am definitely a hands on person so I needed to just do it and make mistakes, so I did.  And a many mistakes I did make.  Luckily my mom was visiting, so we sat down together.  I was protesting the chart making, because I felt like I should be able to figure it out without it.  But, my mom, the perfectionist, made the chart for me.  It started to make sense.  Using the chart, once you remove those stitches that disappear after the bind off, you can adjust your stitches accordingly and make sure that after that first 8 stitch portion of the pattern that is near the armhole edge, you are back on track.  What she also did is use stitch counters to space out each repeat of the lace sequence, so even if your armhole binding wasn't perfect, you know that by the time you get to that first stitch counter, you just continue your sequence as normal before the armhole binding begun.  So, here's to learning something new, and sticking with it!