Friday 30 July 2010

Knitting Lace Triangles

River City Yarns brought in a few copies of Knitting Lace Triangles by Evelyn Clark and I was lucky enough to score a copy.  What a nice little book.

I always feel that people who design beautiful shawls and fantastic sweaters have minds that operate just a little differently than the vast majority of us.  They have a vision that pierces the murky future project and set them solidly, with grace and elegance and beauty in today.  Evelyn Clark is one of these people.  She does beautiful things and as this book testifies, she thinks differently but the process is not terribly complex.

Different does not mean difficult. Clark's process is simplicity itself.  She walks you through the process step by step.  She chooses 4 different lace motifs and she teaches us how to use them to do things of beauty.   She mixes them up, she puts them together in all sorts of ways. She goes through her process of picking beginnings and endings, and with a little technical information, calculations for meterage required and size, allows us to learn to do our own thing.   With these simple steps, we could design our own  shawls.  

This isn't a big book.  It isn't a complete compendium of how to and I think we are better for it. It is small.  It limits our view, restricts it, so that we can focus in on the process, the steps you ought to go through to combine lace patterns with charm and flow and grace.  Learning within these limits can set you free.  

If you are looking for a book to add to your collection and to enlarge your skills, choose this lovely little book.  You will be charmed by it as surely as I am.  

No comments: