The Logic of Lace and a Knitting Pattern You'll Love

My grandniece Ellowyn spends her summers frolicking in the forest around her family’s home. What a lucky girl. When I visit, I find her darting through groves of evergreens and wildflowers, or soaring high on a rope swing strung between the trees, her blonde wisps flying behind her and an impish grin lighting her face. You can’t tame a spirit like that—nor would you want to—but I thought I’d at least offer to knit a headband to tame that wild hair! And now we're offering you the instructions for the same easy-to-knit lace headband I designed for her.

Logical Lace

I love knitting lace for its logic—the way combinations of simple stitches, repeated and varied slightly each row, form the design only they could. And Ellowyn likes lacy! I chose a vintage lace design from PieceWork’s eBook A Lace Revival: 25 Vintage Edgings to Knit and added tapered ties at each end. The original instructions called for knitting several repeats across just one time. Instead, I cast on for two repeats across, knitting them several times for a vertical rather than horizontal effect. Because there is a one-stitch decrease halfway through the pattern, I had to increase one stitch in the final pattern row to have enough stitches to begin the pattern for the next repeat. Either way you choose to create the design, it’s easy and fun and will make a lovely accessory or gift.

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The lacy headband pattern is based on the knitted vintage lace edging sample second from the top.

Lovely Lace Headband Pattern

This pattern is based on No. 1: Wide Leaf Edging from PieceWork’s A Lace Revival: 25 Vintage Edgings to Knit. The original instructions are from a Lily Mills Company of Shelby, North Carolina, booklet that is undated but probably appeared in the late 1940s.

Knit a lacy summertime headband for someone special.

Materials: Handy Hands Lizbeth, 100% Egyptian cotton, size 20, 210 yd (192 m)/25g: 1 ball of #631 Country Purple.

Needles Size 0 (2 mm), any type

Finished Size 1 3/4 inches (4.5 cm) wide and 27 inches (68.58 cm) long

Gauge (blocked) 15 sts and 17 rows = 1 inch (2.5 cm) in stockinette stitch; exact gauge is not critical for this project