Amazing Lace, Take One

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The Team - S. and the lacey Fairgrounds socks

What can I say about the prospect of competing in the Amazing Lace? Whew. Where to begin? I feel as though I have been in training for this one for a while now, not knowing when or how the opportunity to put my training into action would come, but knowing that one day, it would come.

When I first began seeing Clapotis’ in blog-land, long, LONG before I, myself, was a blogger, I fell in love with the pattern; how could something so simple be so complex? I thought. How could such a versatile pattern be so fun to knit? And, most important, would I look like the model in that photo when I completed my own? Well, the answers to the first 2 questions proved so pleasurable that I totally forgot how cute that gal was, and made a second Clapotis outta lace-weight yarn for my friend to wear at her wedding. I thought, yeah, lace is cool; lace is good, but I was not yet hooked.

I then went fishing on Knitty yet again, and caught the Branching Out bug. Do you all remember that? Blogland was ablaze with “Branching Out”-this and “Branching-Out”-that, but for some reason I was not invested. A few repeats of the pattern in, and I simply didn't feel it, I didn't have it, that bug. I joined the Yahoo group for the Mystery Shawl, and got through clue 3 before casting it aside. I seemed to be at a lace-standstill, until two seemingly unrelated events occurred within days of each other, and the perfect knitting storm was born.

August, 2005. Portland, Oregon. Wanna-be lace-knitter surfs the web, out of boredom and desire for a new project. Not satisfied with the usual suspects, she ventures out of her element, all the way “across the pond” to All Tangled Up, where Polly wrote the most wonderful and delightful pattern for a beautiful shawl, named Kiri. Seeing Kiri, I knew I had to have her; it was just a matter of finding the perfect yarn.

September, 2005. Canby, Oregon. Yours truly heads to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival with present-day blogmates E and WG, and, for the first time since becoming addicted to socks, sees Socks that Rock in its natural environment; hanging beautifully at a fiber show. Sure, I had seen it in use, most notably by our very own NK, but there was a snag in production or something, which meant it was NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, just as my sock addiction was taking hold in a major way. Being at the OFFF was like being at mecca, at the motherland, it was like being home. So many colors, so many fibers, so many women with beautiful hand-knits…I am drooling just thinking about it.

It took me maybe a month to complete my first Kiri, and not a day has gone by since that fateful fall when I have not had a lace project on the needles, and, of course, at LEAST one pair of socks. In thinking about what partner I would choose for the Amazing Lace, I stood above my sock-yarn basket, and thought about lace socks. WG had made me an amazing pair of Elfine Lace socks,



and I was dying to try the Kiri-like pattern (have I mentioned that I have made 3 different Kiri’s to date?); NK’s Pomotomi have been calling me ever since she first cast on; and I am warming up with a lace pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks and the newest STR Sock Club yarn.



In closing, being a knitter who has become completely, totally, head-over-heels addicted to lace knitting (or is it knitting lace – I know there is a difference, but I can never remember what it is), and finding myself spiraling downward into an almost-crippling sock-knitting addiction, as well, I have decided to use this KnitALong as an excuse to blend my two addictions.

I will also play on another strength I have, my extreme knitting OCD (yeah, I choose to call it a strength – wanna make something of it?) and make more than one project over this holiday-to-holiday time period. This will also help me achieve something I refer to in hushed whispers as “stash-burning.”

Without further babbling, I present the first of many partners in The Amazing Lace:


STR Fairgrounds (the sock club May colorway)
using the elongated corded rib lace pattern
from Sensational Knitted Socks.

My second partner will be STR lightweight in the Lemongrass colorway, (a long-standing member of my stash, which I will burn, baby, burn) with the Elfine Lace Sock pattern...updates to come...