Lace Knitting vs. Knitted Lace

Lace edgings often are reversible. Or at least pleasingly reversible, since they quite often are attached in ways that can be seen from both sides.

Pleasingly reversible lace edging attached to hem of towel

As a corollary, these lace edgings have patterning on both sides. i.e. There is no “rest row” of plain knit or purl that alternates with rows where yarn overs are made.

Margaret Stove says in her book _Creating Original Hand-knitted Lace_ on page 6:

“… lace knitting is defined as a knitted fabric where there is a row of plain knitting worked alternately with a row of holes made in various ways. Whereas knitted lace is a knitted fabric where the holes are made on every row.”

Knitted Lace, i.e. having patterning on every row, can require a bit more attention, patience, and deftness in forming stitches from the strands of thread. But fortunately, lace edgings have relatively few stitches in a row and thus they are a good way to practice this skill.

The spiraling diamonds in the lace edging we are doing for this month’s project is an example of Knitted Lace. It’s easy to know this by looking at the pattern instructions because there is yarn over patterning on every row.

But even if you do not have pattern instructions to look at, here is how you can identify Knitted Lace vs. Lace Knitting. After you have completed some of your lace edging for this month, stretch it out a bit as if your were blocking it. Do you see the single strands of thread that separate the holes of the lace spiraling diamonds ? This is how Knitted Lace looks. If this instead were Lace Knitting, there would be 2 twisted strands of thread that separate the holes of the spiraling diamonds.

Now look at the eyelets along the outer line of eyelets along the shaped edge. Do you see that there are 2 twisted strands between each set of eyelets along the shaped edge? That narrow portion along the shaped edge is technically Lace Knitting. But since the overall lace edging contains Knitted Lace, I would still classify this pattern as Knitted Lace.