Amazing Lace Introduction

I'm no good at this sort of thing, but here goes my introduction for Amazing Lace. I've always been in love with lace. Although I love just about any craft, I always come back to lace. I know people who are genuinely afraid of lace; I've never feared it. My first real knitting project was a knitted afghan that I made when I was in junior high school; it was a lacy pattern that no one told me was too hard for me. I ended up making another one for my mother.

I then started crocheting more than knitting. I was crocheting afghans in college and decided to make my mother something for Mother's Day, so I picked up some cotton crochet thread and a doily book and went to it. I made lots of doilies with small thread. Then, I took the small thread and decided to have a go at tatting.

I let my crochet lapse because of hand pain, but I don't know why I let knitting lapse for so many years. A couple of years ago, I decided to knit a poncho. Why, I don't know because I've never really cared for ponchos, but I wanted to knit something. I bought a couple of knitting magazines, some yarn and decided not to make a poncho, but a stockinette wrap instead. Then I decided to learn to knit socks. Done. Then my re-introduction into lace was through Nancy Bush. I made her Latvian socks and found another pattern of hers in Scarf Style - Ene's Scarf. "Wow, that's beautiful," I thought. "I don't wear shawls though. Who cares, I have to make it." Needless to say, I was a goner. Lace is now so much of an obsession with me that I learned to spin so I could spin my own laceweight.

Which brings me to the introduction of my partner for Amazing Lace - the Moon Dance Stole. This lovely pattern was written by Melanie. I got this pattern around the same time I was spinning my merino/angora from Kim. I thought it was perfect, so I kept spinning to see if I was going to have enough. I only needed about 1000 yards, but could I get that from 4 ounces of fiber. Two ounces were finished and plied and they totalled over 800 yards! Yep, I could get what I needed. So, without further ado, here is my Moon Dance Stole:

I am enjoying the pattern and the joy of having spun the yarn myself doubles the pleasure!