There are many different ways to needle lace: lace knitting, lace crocheting/Irish lace, tatting, hairpin lace…I have tried all of those, but never the mysterious sounding broomstick thingy.
Since Superbowl Sunday wasn’t all that exciting, I decided to give it a try, and I was planning on making something for myself, anyway.
The pattern of choice, I spotted on facebook:
I chose a light grey wooly yarn, that matches my winter coat pretty well.
Also, you need a crochet hook and, of course, something that resembles the broomstick. I used a knitting needle, size 19, as the pattern is calling for.
Now, the way to cast on reminded me a lot of my favorite way of casting on for knitting with a crochet hook – or the provisional cast on with a crocheted chain. I might put up a little tutorial for that some time soon.
But back to the broomstick lace. After the initial set up row, this is what I got:
It was quite fun to work something new, and after a while, I actually found some kind of rhythm. It’s a little awkward at the beginning, to put loops on that big fat knitting needle, hehe. The rest is actually not so much different from normal crocheting…you just work your single crochet stitches in a bunch of loops (the ones you can see on the knitting needle in the photo). My hat is now finished, I’ll take a photo and upload it in the next days. I might take it back apart, though, because the hat is a little itchy on my head after a while…but I’ll see.
Until soon, happy needeling!
Go ahead and needle something! 