I've Always Wanted to Knit Lace; Now I Am @ Home Ec w/ Amy Gullen

Captions: 1. Amy Gullen, knitting teacher and Cornell College faculty, in her own knitted multi-colored lace shawlette. 2. My light blue knitted lace shawlette. (I also made a white one, not pictured, for my daughter.) 3. My lace Pebble Beach shawlette in various colors of blue with white for contrast (Miss Bab's wool and silk yarn from Tennessee). 4. Me wearing my Pebble Beach shawl, probably my favorite of all.

I've always wanted to knit lace. It's probably the Irish in me. So I took a course at Home Ec a couple of years ago to knit a lace shawlette with Amy Gullen, our knitting teacher. There were only two of us, me and the mother of Cody, Home Ec's owner, taking the class. That was lucky because both of us were having trouble learning the new stitches required for lace, and Cody's mother had to go back to Colorado where she came from and couldn't finish her shawlette until later. I decided to continue with private lessons to finish mine. Some of the stitches were particularly hard, especially the raised ball-shaped stitches, but with Amy's tutelage, I found that I could do them.

Wetherill Winder, one of my husband's former coworkers (she's retired now) and a champion knitter like Amy, told me once she likes my knitting. Even though I was a beginner and hadn't even learned to purl, I took heart from that. At least I can knit evenly.

Another friend, Sally Hall, told me that her mother taught her how to knit when she was three or at some other absurdly early age. When Sally would get frustrated, she'd give up. Her mother would carefully undo her knitting and Sally would wake up and see her knitting looking much better. I'm almost certain I'd smell a rat under the same circumstances, but apparently Sally bought it hook, line, and sinker and proceeded to learn to knit with confidence.

I remember the time her sister Ruth, another champion knitter, made me learn to cast on like she did at a Hieronymus house party at Al and Frieda's house. She didn't ask if I'd like to learn. She made me learn. Her children are all very accomplished, by the way, in music, science, and other fields. They probably didn't have a choice!

Regrettably, I don't remember Ruth's cast-on method but someone did finally teach me a simple method and a long-tail method (Amy) for casting on that I barely remember since I don't do it often enough to remember, and I'm starting to remember how to cast off in various ways as well, though I don't do that very often either.

By the time I'm 75 and have had required hand surgery for my "Celtic claw" and other arthritic fingers, I'll be an expert knitter! It's something I'm looking forward to!