Living on the edge

When I first started this baby blanket journey, I went searching for lace centers. I came across quite a few edgings that I thought were pretty but I was focused on the center. Now that I’ve found the center and finished it, I’ve been indulging in lace edgings. This is putting the cart before the horse because I want to do a bit in between the center and the edge, but I figured that I’d need to know how many stitches to end the middle bit on.

So I scoured the internet for lace edgings, and boy did I find them. I was drawn to the older patterns. I wanted the traditional look of lace in the nontraditional color I’d picked. I found a great collection in the knitting section of the Antique Pattern Library. I spent quite a while reading old patterns but the Knitted Laces by Lillius Hilt (Needlecraft Vol. XI, No. 1) caught my eye. And of those No. 3 for Grace McGregor, seemed like what I was looking for. But I decided to try out other ones first.

First I tried out the English Wide Lace:

Garter on the left, stockinette on the right.

I did it in both garter stitch and stockinette and adding three garter stitches at the end. The end garter stitches didn’t work out, but I think that the stockinette showed the lace off better.

Then I decided to string all the different possible edgings together.

From right to left: Perfection Leaf Lace, Betsy’s Rose Leaf Lace, Grandmother’s Edging and the last three are variations of Rule 58

I found Rule 58 Lace Edging in Trimmings: A Sample from Piecework on the KnittingDaily site. It wasn’t written out using modern terms. There was "n" for narrow, instead of "k2tog" for knit two together. So, I decided I’d try my hand at interpreting and charting. This was my first foray into creating my own charts.  I may have gone a bit mad, but hey, we're all mad here. Since the style was old, I charted Rule 58 out first including the knit stitches:

The knit stitches are the 'l's.

But I couldn’t see the design very well so I took them out.

So much easier to see the pattern.

I had already played with the Grandmother’s trimming, and liked the way it looked. So I changed the over all pattern from garter stitch to stockinette - that way the design is easier to see.

Stockinette on right, garter on left.

It was nice but there was something missing, so I went back to my inspiration boards. I remembered that No. 3 for Grace McGregor was an edging I’d been interested in. And then the charting exploded.

Next time: So many different charts your head will spin - mine did.