There’s an art to explaining things in a way that leaves your audience energized and eager to get started.  You have to provide enough information to make people feel confident but not so much that they start wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into.  In her first book, Everyday Lace: Simple Sophisticated Knitted Garments, Heather Zoppetti does a marvelous job of striking just the right balance as she demystifies lace and shows you all of the lovely ways you can incorporate it into a host of practical, wearable garments.

She starts by providing a lace primer (including sections on tools, charts, lifelines, and blocking).  This is a perfect introduction for anyone who might be hesitant to tackle lace.  If you’ve been nervous about lace or charts, this will leave you wondering why you’ve waited so long to give them a try.

After making sure you’re on firm footing, she jumps right into the patterns.  These range from small (hats and fingerless gloves) to more substantial (pullovers and cardigans).  And just as the scale of the projects vary, so too does the amount of lace involved.  Some (like the Engleside Cowl-Neck Pullover, my personal favorite) use just a hint of lace as an accent and provide plenty of quiet space to let you relax and catch your breath.  Others (like the lovely Conestoga Tunic) are all lace all the time to let you show off your new skills.  The mix makes this collection perfect for the beginning lace knitter, but also ensures you won’t run out of projects to tackle as your skills grow!

You can see all the lovely projects on the book’s ravelry page, or get your own copy on amazon.  If you’d like to find out more about the book, Heather’s got a scavenger hunt going on (details over here if you’d like to play along). Heather’s question for this stop on the blog tour is How many sock patterns are in Everyday Lace? And my question is Which of my books doesn’t have any sock patterns in it?

The images are from the book, taken by Joe Hancock, and belong to Interweave. They are used with permission.