Supplies and suppliers, and knitted tablecloth patterns.

Lace Knitting

I have a friend who wants to do some Shetland lace knitting with projects which require ‘finest lace weight Shetland yarn’ or ‘Shetland lace weight yarn’.  Has anyone heard of this?  Do you know how thick (or thin) these wools are, or where my friend could get them.
Jo

The finest wool available in Australia is 2 ply and for most Shetland projects works. It is not posible to get the 1 ply other than spinning this yourself and I think you would need to be very expeienced to do this. All Shetland designs that I have done I have used the 2 ply. You can get cones of 2 ply form a place in Sydney but I am not at home now to find the information.

The Heirloom knitting site
www.heirloom-knitting.co.uk
seems to indicate you need 1 ply wool.

Knitted Table cloths

Mary mentioned that sometime ago one of the Gumnuts was looking for knitted tablecloths.  I have an excellent bokk that I have only had for a couple of years.  I bought it in the wool shop in Warrnambool.  It may still be available.  Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel.  It has a range of different shapped edgins corners and full cloths and doilys in patterns that are different from the usual.  I like to knit round cloths on circular needles and give these to family members on the birth of their first child.  I knit in cotton so the cloth can first be used as a shawl and later as a table cloth.  I use Twillys Lyscot cotton from Safeway/Woolworths.  I find it washes and wears really well and at arount $6.00 per 50g it makes an inexpensive gift.  It takes 3-4 balls for a shawl/tablecloth.

I have that Kinzel book and love it and have knitted the round and oval patterns from it.  I was looking for an oval pattern similar in size to the one there called “Lilac Time” which I have knitted at least four times.  Three of them had two extra pattern repeats to adjust for the table size.  One hangs draped over a rod as a curtain in the lounge room.  After seeing how many of the next generation treat lace I decided to use it as I wished irrespective of the damage inflicted by ultra violet radiation and, as you say, apart from time, the Lyscot cotton makes them reasonably inexpensive and they are a great hospital project when you are keeping someone company after surgery and waiting for specialists in outpatients.

As a matter of interest to other lace knitters/bobbin throwers, the Rose of England centre from the same book popped up on the internet somewhere as a bobbin lace charting some time back.  I do not have the internet page reference number but it may still be up.

I am currently knitting the Rose Of England Cloth.  I will look at it in a new light.  I had never thought of trying to use a knitted pattern graph to do bobbin lace – maybe one day!!