Way back before Ravelry, obsessed knitters stalked Knitty.com for patterns, waited with baited breath for the new issue each season. (ok we still do that) But it was one of the few reliable resources for knitting patterns.
In Spring 2004, Sivia Harding’s pattern Variation on a Frill went live. At the time, I worked in an office with just a thin wall separating myself from another obsessed knitter. I remember that we both ordered yarn from Webs for the project. It called for an Egyptian cotton and sead beads. I have no idea where this project ended up but it certainly isn’t in my yarn room. At some point I probably gave up on finishing it, decided that knitting lace in Egyptian cotton was a terrible idea and threw the darn thing away. But what that Knitty pattern did was exactly what it should do – it introduced me to this designer, Sivia Harding. I went to her website and purchased two of her lace and beaded patterns. They arrived to me in the mail on paper (so neat!) I started Angel Pearls with a lace weight cashmere that I purchased on ebay (oh yeah! EBAY!) It came to me with no label. I haven’t a clue what it is. I had no idea how to read a lace chart. I cast on and plowed forward. I got this far:
I was using bamboo 16″ circular needles. I was reading the written instructions and not the chart. I was pre-threading the beads instead of using dental floss or a crochet hook! My entire approach on this thing was off. I am shocked that I made it this far. It took so long to work just one row.
Now with Sivia on her way here this week, I am tempted to finish this darn thing. It has sat in my yarn stash for almost a decade. Part of me wants to use different yarn but it probably wouldn’t be the same as finishing the one that I actually started. Part of me just wants to hold on to it to remind me of where I was just 10 years ago…and where our industry was just a decade ago. We have all come so far in just a short period of time!