Knitting lace is pretty cool. But it can be scary for some people. So here are a few tips to get you going comfortably with lace!

LACE TIPS:

When knitting lace patterns, there is generally a compensating  decrease for every increase.

This is the thing that makes lace be lace. You could also say there is a compensating increase for every decrease.  The increase most commonly used is a Yarn over - so you could say there is a compensating decrease for every Yarn Over.

Just think about it, if you didn't decrease every time you did a YO for an increase, your knitting would grow and grow sideways. Not what we usually want in a piece of knitting (Unless you are making a shawl!--Maybe that's how they invented shawls in the first place.)

A Yarn Over (YO) is done by just flipping the yarn to the other side of the needle so that it wraps around the needle when you make your next stitch. Then on the next row, you knit that extra little piece of yarn, thus making an extra stitch, and a hole in your work.

 Measuring Lace GAUGE.

To calculate lace gauge lay the blocked swatch on a flat surface and, using a flat ruler, measure the full portion of lace in which the pattern is worked through twice.  To be extra sure, also measure half of the lace, which is the pattern worked through once. Divide number of stitches used in swatch by number of sts.  If these figures are both the same fraction you'll know your measuring was correct. 

Hope that's useful!!

Connie