I stayed away from lace knitting for many years, mostly because I assumed it would be too complicated to really do well. But a few months ago, during one of my regular forays into the John Lewis haberdashery department, I found myself lusting over Rowan's beautiful kidsilk haze selection and before I knew it a ball of 'Blushes' was in my basket.
Upon taking it home and knitting a few rows of simple blanket stitch, I realised that it would be the perfect candidate for my lace-knitting initiation and set about teaching myself the stitches from Debbie Bliss' seminal guide on all things knitterly, How To Knit. Within the hour I had finished the first two rows of her 'oriental parasol' pattern, and within a month I'd reached the end of the ball. As I made it so wide it will need another couple of balls to really finish it off, and although it's a bit of a muddled ugly duckling in places [I was obviously oogling James Franco at the time.. obviously], I am very proud of my efforts so far.
