If at first you don't succeed...

...frog that bitch.

This is as far as I got with my beautiful silk lace gloves before realizing they weren't going to work, no way, no how:

See what I mean? Not so much gloves as an elementary-school friendship bracelet gone horribly, misshapenly wrong.

Now imagine how satisfying this was:

Don't cry, pretty silk lace yarn. You're going to a better place, as soon as Mommy finds herself a steel crochet hook.

In the interest of full disclosure...

I have seen a shrug pattern that I like.

This is the Maui Shrug by Jennifer Reeve (pattern available at CrochetMe with registration). I think it's way cute. I also feel a little embarrassed that I have to eat my words on shrugs that quickly, but still, it's one cute shrug against dozens of not-so-cute shrugs, and I did say I liked lacy little bolero jackets, and this is one of those, even if it is called a shrug.

It's cute though, and I have to give credit where credit is due. Now I think I should make a post complaining about the lack of crocheted sock patterns in the hopes that I'll suddenly start finding those once I've publicly stated that I can't find them. Might as well work the eating of words to my advantage.

Addendum on Lace

So not so long ago I seem to recall giving a bunch of you grief for not knitting lace. Well, now, after my own failed go at the lace, I understand a little better why people don't knit and crochet lots and lots of lace: Because it sucks.

Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. But the lace will definitely take some getting used to. It's so freaking small. (Yes, I know! That's why they call it lace-weight!) The yarn's small, and the hook's small, and the stitches are small... Wow, I have a whole new respect for thread crocheters. Actually I already had a pretty healthy respect for them, but now I know that thread crochet must be even tougher than lace, because at least lace-weight yarn generally feels better than mercerized cotton thread. Thread crocheters are really dedicated to their art.

Despite these misgivings, please don't misunderstand: I'm not giving up on lace crochet. I can't. I bought all that yarn.

Getting read the riot act

I should have known I was in for it with my post on lace, because someone read me the riot act last night for dismissing knitted lace. So I had to explain that I've seen some absolutely beautiful knitted lace in books, but rarely in person. I guess not many people make lace these days? Is it too out of style? Too tedious?

Of course, then we found a beautiful knitted lace shawl upstairs at Knitch so then I felt really silly. Okay, knit lace is beautiful, but I WON'T KNOW IF YOU DON'T KNIT IT. Sorry. Just had to get that out of my system.

In the midst of all this riot-acting, I found a small treasure that I just could not pass up:

It's the new lace-weight Malabrigo merino, and it looks even better in person. All the colors were lovely, but this is the 137 Emerald Blue and I thought it had the most life of the colorways available. It's silky-soft too, not that I expected any less from Malabrigo. And at almost 500 yards for less than $10, I think it's a great value. (Gee, can you tell that pretty much all my discretionary income goes into yarn?) I haven't exactly decided what to do with it yet, but I'm thinking some sort of lacy scarf. Designed by moi, of course. (Sorry. Miss Piggy moment.)

Also, it turned out I had more yarn than I needed for the family's Christmas gifts, so I traded it in for this beauty:

Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Alpine, and I have big plans for this too. So apparently, when I said I was sick of blue, I meant I was sick of quiet blue. Loud bright vibrant blue is just fine in my book.

Take back the lace!

For a while now I've had intentions of taking up crocheted lace in the new year. There are multiple reasons for this, the most obvious one being totally ripped off from the Yarn Harlot in At Knits End:

The frugal knitter will quickly develop a taste for fine wool on tiny needles. There are many, many yards in those wee balls, and it takes lots and lots of tiny stitches to make anything. One hundred grams of chunky wool lasts only a few hours, but 100 grams of fingering-weight wool takes a good long time to knit up.

She's a smart one, that Yarn Harlot, even if she does hate crochet. (Why, Stephanie? WHY?!)

So anyway, I've been telling myself for a while that since I go through yarn so fast, the way to slow my yarn expenditures while still getting lots of yummy, yummy yarn to play with is to take up lace crochet. I've seen all the beautiful lace-weight hand-painted skeins at Knitch. Sure, that Claudia Hand Painted Silk Lace is 42 bucks a skein, but you get 1100 yards!! That would keep me busy for, like, a whole week or two.

Also, I think crochet is particularly well-suited to lace -- of course it should be, crochet was originally invented as a cheap fast way to make lace. (And we are convinced that the words "fast" and "cheap" explain why the knitters make fun of us.) I've seen some beautiful knit lace in books, but most of the knit lace I've seen in person was more loopy than lacy. Of course, this may just have something to do with the fact that I don't know many people who knit or crochet lace much at all. StringTheory2 (whose blog you totally oughtta check out) got some really nice alpaca lace-weight, but then she stopped mid-project and went back to sweaters. I think she said the yarn tangled. Which is why my new year's resolution here kinda depends on getting a yarn swift and ball winder for Christmas, because no way can I wind that stuff myself without losing the few marbles I have left. But I'm digressing.

So someone at the Crochet Liberation Front board on Ravelry observed that there seemed to be hardly any crochet lace shawl patterns around. And I realized she was right. If I search the "lace" tag in the crochet patterns at Ravelry, I turn up very little, and what's there isn't necessarily "lace" in the traditional sense. I think what Doris Chan is doing with bulkier yarn in Amazing Crochet Lace is pretty cool, but it's not what I'm looking for (mainly because bulkier yarns with lower yardage would defeat the whole point of my yardage conservation).

I'm really surprised there's so little out there. I know a lot of Irish crochet patterns were never written down and were lost to time, but there's got to be more lace out there. Hey, stitch guides pretty much tell you how to make as much of a given stitch design as you want, so how much harder can coming up with the rest of the pattern be? Uh oh. These are the words that will have my knitting group laughing hysterically at me in six months when I lose it and start ripping out my hair and screaming profanities at my lace.

Seriously though, there's so much we crocheters can do here, and our technique is made for lace! Personally, those loopy knit shawls have me suspecting that crochet may be better than knitting for making lace (don't worry knitters, you still have it all over us when it comes to socks). I'm really excited to see what we at the CLF can come up with. Lace revival? Hey, why not?