Friday, March 31, 2023

Neapolitan Lace Edging - Vintage Stitch Series

Sample knit with fingering weight yarn, US 7 needles
 
Sample knit with worsted weight yarn, US 8 needles
                                                                                   

                                                                                 

And here are both - each sample is six repeats of the pattern.  Hopefully you can see the difference in size between yarn weights.  You don't need to use light weight yarn to knit beautiful lace!



I copied this off from an old newspaper; unfortunately the name and edition date of the newspaper do not show on the copy. I have a lot of stitches saved from a paper out of New York from the late 1800's, so my best guess is that this particular lace comes from an edition of that paper.


A note as to Row 4 - the instructions for Row 4 begin as follows:

"Slip the first stitch, knit the second and slip the first one over the second, leaving only one stitch on the needle. Knit the next stitch and bind it off in the same manner.  Continue this binding off until there are but fourteen stitches on the left hand needle, which, with one on the other will make fifteen stitches, the number started with."

I tried Row 4 with the first stitch slipped and also knitted as I show in the video.  I don't think it makes any difference whether or not the first stitch is slipped, at least I didn't see any.  Also, you will be binding off 4 stitches - unless you've made an error in a previous row, binding off 4 stitches should leave you with the required 15.


Cast on 15 stitches

Knit one row - this set up row is not repeated

Row 1: k3, yo, k2tog, k3, yo, k1, yo, k6

Row 2: k6, yo, k3, yo, k2tog, k3, yo, k2tog, k1

Row 3: k3, yo, (k2tog) twice, yo, k5, yo, k6

Row 4: Bind off 4 stitches - you should have 14 sts on the left needle and 1 on the right - k1, yo, k2tog, k3, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, k2tog, k1

Row 5: k3, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, k2tog, k1, k2tog, yo, k3

Row 6: k3, yo, k1, yo, s2kpo, yo, k4, yo, k2tog, k1

Repeat these 6 Rows for the pattern.






2 comments:

Jamie said...

As it happens, I found this exact pattern stitch in Ballou’s Monthly Magazine for January 1884 on pg.92, "The Ladies’ Own Page"

I originally found it on Google Books, but I don't see it there now.

Regards,
Jamie

TheWeeklyStitch said...

I have seen this pattern called English Torchon Lace as well.