This Year's Ornament

I really enjoyed making little sweater ornaments last year, but this holiday season, as I've spent the days leading up to the holidays in the great outdoors, I found a different inspiration for some knitted decorations.

Between the beautiful ginko trees in the yard where I'm staying with friends, the lace knitting that I've done recently, and my current interest in knitting with wire, I was inspired to play around and create some lace leaf ornaments.

The concept is simple. You just take a repeat of your favorite traditional lace pattern, and knit it with a strand of mohair. I used a fine kid mohair silk blend for the white leaves and a thicker wool mohair blend for the colored leaves.

The silver leaf with beads is simply the same pattern without the yarn, using a thicker silver wire. Mine was 26 guage sterling.

I'm copyrighting the recipe, since I think it's such a cool concept that I'd like to keep the credit for it, but I think it would be really cool to see what other lace patterns people could come up with to knit this way. I've had snowflakes on the brain as well (check out the really cool links), and I'd love to see a snowflake version if anyone comes up with one.

White Lace Leaf Ornament
Julia Trice, copyright 2005

Materials:

Small amount of lace weight mohair (I used Art Fibers' Tsuki, but Karabella's laceweight mohair and Rowan's kidsilk haze would give the same effect)

Spool of 36 gauge metal wire (available at beading supply shops for about 99 cents)

Size US7-US10 wooden needles

Wire cutters to cut ends

Precaution:

When working with wire it is always advisable to wear safety googles to prevent sharp ends from injuring your eyes. When your leaf is complete, carefully tuck in any sharp ends that might protrude and keep out of reach of children.

Instructions:

With yarn and wire held together, cast on 3 sts using the backward loop method.
Row 1: k3
Row 2: k1, yo, k1, yo, k1
Row 3 and all odd rows through row 11: purl
Row 4: k2, yo, k1, yo, k2
Row 6: k3, yo, k1, yo, k3
Row 8: ssk, k5, k2tog
Row 10: ssk, k3, k2tog
Row 12: ssk, k1, k2tog
Row 13: sl1, p2tog, psso, fasten off.