The Lace Deep End

I have fallen down the Niebling rabbit hole.  You may have never heard of Herbert Niebling, a 20th century designer of intricate lace knitting patterns, but lace knitters know.  For years I had resisted the siren call, which honestly wasn't difficult as getting your hands on his patterns is tricky.  Thanks to a former-East German printing house, and Amazon (.com, .de, .uk), I bought a pattern booklet online.

The pattern I'm using is Tulpenkranz, or Tulip Wreath.  It's going to be massive: my conservative estimate is 2.5m in diameter.  The original pattern calls for #200 crochet cotton, which is half as fine as sewing thread and no longer produced.  I'm using laceweight wool/silk yarn.

c Buch Verlag für die Frau, from Kunstrick-Decken

So far I'm almost 10% done.  A photo from the weekend shows the tablecloth-to-be fetchingly worn as a hat.  I'm enjoying the project so far!

Neat fact: the German term for lace knitting translates as "art knitting."