BAD Maggie, BAD girl.

When I start a new pattern I sometimes get a little too excited and a little carried away. So when we started the Tappan Zee Cardigan Knit-Along, I couldn't wait to cast on and get knitting! And I apparently got a little carried away, oops! I found I had surged too far ahead and forced myself to put my cardi down until people had a chance to catch up. But, being the crazy knitter that I am I had to work on three other projects in the meantime. Of course then I noticed how far people had progressed on their cardis and realized I had forgotten all about mine!! So, I guess better late then never... After surging ahead in the beginning, I'm now caught back up with everyone else.

Now where did we leave off? Ah yes, we were going to talk about lace. Now, I'm not going to deny that lace can get complicated. There are some very intricate and complicated patterns for lace, but the basic concepts of lace are very straightforward. To knit a basic lace pattern, you need to know how to increase and decrease and make a yarn-over. In the last post I talked a bit about increases, so let's turn our focus to decreases.
Basic lace is achieved through a series of yarn-overs (creating eyelet holes) that are placed in a certain way to make a pattern. Now, as you know from our earlier discussions about gauge, the number of stitches you have is what determines the size. And since a yarn over creates an extra stitch, we need to make sure that we decrease too in order to maintain the correct number of stitches for our size. So when you look at a lace pattern, you will notice that for every yarn over or increase, there is a corresponding decrease. This is one of the things I love about lace! There is symmetry and balance, it speaks to my math brain.
The decreases in the lace serve a practical purpose in keeping the stitch count correct, but their placement is also decorative. By knitting two stitches together or knitting what's called an SSK (slip, slip, knit) you can make your decrease appear to slant left or right. These are known as leaning or slanting decreases.
This is when we start getting decorative by choosing which direction we want our decreases to slant. Take a look at the picture on the right and look at how the decreases help to create the diamond shape.
On the bottom half of the diamond, the decreases are on the outside of the diamond and lean away. On the top half of the diamond, the decreases are in the center of the diamond and lean inward. By positioning the decreases in this way, it helps accentuate the shape of the diamond.
Another common shape in lace knitting is a leaf, created in a similar manner by using leaning decreases to create the outside edge of the leaf.
The only other technique used in this lace pattern is a double decrease, in this case a sk2p. Translation? Slip one stitch, knit two stitches together, pass the slipped stitch over. The effect? Your knit two stitches together will lean in from one side and your slipped stitch will lean in from the other side. Your middle stitch will be nice and centered with the other stitches leaning inwards and forming the point of the diamond.
So how do we all feel about lace now? I know this is a rather quick introduction, but it is a nice basic way to start. The individual techniques used in this sweater are all relatively simple and I'm guessing most of you have encountered them in other project.
That's the thing with knitting though, few of the individual techniques are really all that complicated. It is how you combine everything that makes a project more intricate and sophisticated. But knitting itself should not be hard/scary/stressful/etc... so take it one step at a time!
After you survive the lace around the yoke of this sweater, you're home free!! The pattern will walk you through casting off the armhole stitches and joining up the body stitches. And then? There is a lot of stockinette. Just make sure you keep some stitch markers in place to remind yourself to always knit the first and last five stitches to make the garter stitch border. The body of this sweater makes great TV or movie knitting!
If you are interested in adding sleeves to your sweater, just slip your live stitches onto a stitch holder or piece of scrap yarn instead of casting them off. You can go back later and pick them up to knit your sleeves top down in the round. Take a look at people's project pages on Ravelry to get some tips on shaping and sleeve length.
And hopefully, next time we see each other we'll be wearing our FOs!!

Happy Knitting!
Maggie