Lace Knitting Patterns

How to Knit a Lace Pattern: What You Need to Know

Lace knitting creates delicate and intricate patterns of tiny holes, lattices, and knots in your fabric. Lace designs can be formed in any type of knitted fabric, but stockinette stitch is the most common.

It’s usually worked with lightweight yarn and small needles between 3mm and 5mm in diameter.

There are dozens of different lace knitting stitches and patterns, each of which produces a different design. They can range from simple, symmetrical patterns to complex eyelets or flowing diamond shapes — and much, much more.

Regardless of their complexity, the majority of lace patterns can be broken down into a combination of classic knit and purl stitches, yarn overs, and ‘k2tog’ decreases. These techniques all come together to produce a unique texture and appearance.

The open structure and thin yarn used in lace knitting typically creates a lightweight and airy fabric. For this reason, it’s often used for small accessories and lighter clothing such as shawls, summer sweaters, and lightweight scarves.

Although the basic techniques involved are easy, lace knitting is often considered to be an advanced form of knitting due to the attention to detail involved. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the number of rows and stitches you’ve knitted, how consistent your gauge is, and more.

The Most Important Techniques in Lace Knitting

It might look intimidating, but you can knit a simple lace pattern with just a few basic skills:

The “Yarn Over” (yo)

The most common technique in lace knitting is the yarn over, which is abbreviated to ‘yo’ in most knitting patterns. A yarn over is a type of increase, which means it adds a new stitch to your needle that wasn’t there before.

When you add a new stitch using a yarn over, you then knit into the new stitch on the following round. Since there are no stitches preceding it, this creates a small hole in your fabric. In fact, accidental yarn overs — and the holes they create — are actually one of the most common mistakes in knitting.

Yarn overs can vary slightly depending on where you are in your project, which means some knitting patterns use different terms and abbreviations to refer to the same thing. You’ll see the same technique referred to as a ‘yarn forward’ (yf), ‘yarn round needle’ (yrn), and ‘yarn over’ (yo).

The “Knit 2 Together Yarn Over” (K2tog yo)

This is a very common pairing in lace knitting, and makes up a basic component of most knitted lace patterns. It’s a simple “knit two together” decrease that’s positioned directly next to a yarn over.

The ‘k2tog yo’ combination doesn’t affect your stitch count, as you’re essentially pairing a decrease with an increase. This means it won’t shape or slant your fabric. However, it does create a simple eyelet effect that you can work into your project.

This technique is often used in straight projects like scarves, or in the body of larger lace projects. It can also be used to make buttonholes.

Combining Decreases and Yarn Overs

The ‘yo’ and ‘k2tog yo’ are two basic techniques that will appear in the majority of lace knitting patterns. You should also be familiar with other types of decrease like “slip slip knit” (ssk) and the classic “knit two together” (k2tog) or “knit three together” (k3tog).

Once you’ve mastered these, there are dozens more increasing and decreasing methods in knitting, each of which produces a different effect.

The arrangement of these decreases, together with the small holes created by yarn overs, form the intricate and unique lace patterns that we know and love.

How to Read Lace Knitting Charts

Once you’ve chosen your knitting pattern, you’ll find the instructions written out in one of two ways.

Some designers will write out each stitch, while others will use a lace knitting chart to show the stitches. In some cases, you’ll be able to choose from both.

In lace charts, a yarn over is typically represented by an empty circle (like the hole it makes in your fabric). Decreases are usually shown as slanted lines, just like the lines they create in your fabric. By reading the chart, you can quickly get a good sense of how your lace pattern will look.

Just like intarsia charts, lace charts usually only show one repeat of the pattern. You won’t get a chart for the entire pattern, but you simply work the chart’s instructions as many times as necessary.

As always, we recommend checking the row numbers given, the instructions in the pattern, and any notes next to the chart before you start knitting.

Tips for Lace Knitting

In this section, we’ll briefly explain some additional tips that will help you get started with lace knitting.

In simple lace designs, the pattern is usually only present on the right side of the fabric. In this case, you simply purl your stitches on the wrong side of the work.

More complicated lace patterns involve working a lace pattern on both the right and wrong sides of your knitting. This can look impressive, but it’s worth getting comfortable with easier patterns before trying these out.

Good luck, and happy lace knitting!