Lace Knitting 116: Your Complete Guide to Elevating Your Skills with Advanced Patterns and Techniques

There is a particular kind of magic in lace knitting. A plain skein of yarn transforms through a series of deliberate holes — yarn-overs, decreases, and carefully plotted stitches — into something that looks impossibly delicate, like frost on a windowpane or the wing of a dragonfly held up to sunlight. If you have been knitting for a while and feel ready to push past the basics, you are in exactly the right place. This guide is designed to walk you through the craft of lace knitting at an intermediate-to-advanced level, offering the kind of deep, practical knowledge that will help you tackle 116-stitch lace patterns with confidence, understand the logic behind the stitches, and ultimately produce work you are genuinely proud of.

What “Lace Knitting 116” Actually Means for Your Practice

Before diving into techniques, it helps to understand what a 116-stitch lace pattern actually represents. In many classic lace traditions — particularly Shetland, Estonian, and Victorian-era designs — patterns are organized around specific stitch counts. A 116-stitch cast-on often signals a pattern built on an 8-stitch or 4-stitch repeat with a border, or a 12-stitch repeat with edge stitches added on either side. The number is not arbitrary; it reflects the mathematical architecture of lace.

When you work with a 116-stitch count, you are typically dealing with a pattern that has a relatively wide horizontal spread, making it ideal for shawls, stoles, bed jackets, or lace panels in garments. The 116-stitch width gives a knitter enough room to showcase a full motif repeat — perhaps a leaf or feather panel repeated multiple times across the row — while maintaining clean, symmetrical edges.

Understanding the logic of your stitch count before you cast on is one of the habits that separates confident lace knitters from frustrated ones. Take five minutes before every project to divide your stitch count and figure out how many full repeats you have, how many stitches are allocated to borders, and whether the pattern requires a central stitch. For 116 stitches, a common breakdown might be two stitches for a selvedge edge, 8 stitches for a border pattern on each side, and then 96 stitches in the middle divided into twelve 8-stitch repeats. Knowing this map before you begin means that when something goes wrong — and in lace, something always goes wrong — you can diagnose the problem rather than tear everything out in despair.

Choosing the Right Yarn for Lace Work

The yarn you choose will determine almost everything about how your finished lace looks and behaves. Traditional lace was knitted in very fine wool — often 2-ply or cobweb weight — or silk, both of which have a natural drape and bloom that allows the lacework to open up beautifully when blocked. But modern lace knitters have a much wider palette to choose from, and understanding the properties of different fibers will help you make smart decisions for each project.

Wool with a high lanolin content, such as traditional Shetland wool, is incredibly forgiving. It grips itself slightly, which means that your tension is more consistent and the fabric stays where you put it during blocking. If you are working a 116-stitch lace shawl with complex motifs, a sticky wool will make your life measurably easier. On the other hand, plant fibers like cotton and linen have very little memory and tend to be heavier, which means your lace will drape more stiffly and those beautiful open holes will not bloom in quite the same way unless you use a very fine weight.

Silk and silk-blend yarns are the showstoppers of the lace world. They have a natural luster that makes every yarn-over glow and every decrease catch the light differently. The downside is that silk has no memory at all and can be slippery to work with, particularly on metal needles. If you are new to lace with silk, try bamboo or wooden needles, which grip the yarn just enough to keep it from sliding off mid-row.

Mohair-blend lace yarns have become enormously popular in recent years. These halos of fiber add softness and warmth while also doing something genuinely useful: the halo obscures small imperfections in your tension. For beginning-to-intermediate lace knitters who are still developing an even gauge, a mohair-blend at laceweight can be a surprisingly forgiving choice. The flip side is that mohair is extremely difficult to frog (unravel), so you want to mark your rows carefully and catch errors quickly.

For a 116-stitch project intended as a shawl or stole, most knitters will want something in the laceweight to fingering weight range. A fingering weight gives you a fabric that is lacy but still has substance, which can be reassuring if you find the near-transparency of cobweb weight a little nerve-wracking.

Essential Tools That Make a Difference

Lace knitting does not require a great deal of equipment, but a few specific tools will genuinely improve your process.

Interchangeable circular needles with a smooth join are worth every penny for large-scale lace projects. A 116-stitch shawl that grows outward will eventually require a 32-inch or 40-inch cable, and having the flexibility to change cable length as your project grows saves constant re-stringing. Look for needles with a tapered tip rather than a blunt one — the pointed tip allows you to enter two or three stitches at once for compound decreases like the centered double decrease (CDD), which appears frequently in lace patterns.

Blocking tools are non-negotiable. Lace before blocking looks like a crumpled disappointment; lace after blocking looks like it was made by someone who knows exactly what they are doing, even if you had to rip back three times. You will want blocking mats (interlocking foam tiles work perfectly), a set of T-pins or blocking wires, a spray bottle, and a measuring tape. Blocking wires threaded through the edge stitches of a shawl allow you to achieve a perfectly straight edge with far fewer pins than you would otherwise need.

A lifeline is your single most powerful anxiety-reducing tool in lace knitting. Before you begin a difficult section or after you complete a full pattern repeat, thread a piece of smooth waste yarn through all the live stitches on your needle using a tapestry needle or the dedicated lifeline hole on some interchangeable needle sets. If you make an error several rows later, you can rip back to the lifeline without losing all your work. For a 116-stitch project, inserting a lifeline every ten to fifteen rows takes about three minutes and saves hours of heartbreak.

Row counters, stitch markers, and a good desk lamp round out your toolkit. When working a 116-stitch lace row with multiple repeats, stitch markers placed at each repeat boundary are not optional — they are how you catch errors before they compound. If you count twelve stitches between each marker and you reach a marker and have fourteen stitches, you know the problem is isolated to that section and you can fix it immediately.

Reading Lace Charts vs. Written Instructions

Most intermediate and advanced lace patterns are presented as charts, and if you have been avoiding them in favor of written row-by-row instructions, now is the time to make peace with charts. Charts are not harder than written instructions — they are just a different language, and once you learn it, they become significantly more intuitive.

A lace chart shows you a visual representation of what the finished fabric will look like. Each square represents one stitch, and each symbol represents either a stitch type or an action. The most common symbols you will encounter are: the empty square for a knit stitch; the circle or O for a yarn-over; the slash and backslash for right-leaning and left-leaning decreases; and the bold diamond or circle for a centered double decrease. Most charts are read from right to left on right-side rows and left to right on wrong-side rows, mirroring the direction in which you knit.

For 116-stitch patterns, charts become especially valuable because you can see at a glance where the repeat begins and ends, how the motifs relate to each other, and where you are in the overall design. Written instructions for a complex 116-stitch row can run three or four lines of dense text; the same information in a chart is a single horizontal band of symbols that you can take in visually. Many experienced lace knitters work directly from the chart while also keeping the written instructions nearby for any techniques that the symbols don’t fully explain.

If you are transitioning to charts for the first time, start by copying the relevant section of the chart onto grid paper and marking off each row as you complete it. This physical engagement helps your brain build the mental model you need to eventually track charts fluidly in your head.

Mastering the Core Lace Techniques

Lace knitting is built from a surprisingly small vocabulary of stitches. What creates complexity is the way these stitches are combined and sequenced. The fundamental moves are the yarn-over, the knit-two-together (k2tog), the slip-slip-knit (ssk), and the centered double decrease (CDD). Mastering these four elements gives you the foundation to execute virtually any lace pattern.

The yarn-over is the engine of lace — it creates the open holes that give the fabric its airy quality. It also adds a stitch to your count, which is why every yarn-over in a lace pattern is paired with a corresponding decrease somewhere in the same row or section. If you count your stitches and find you have more than you started with, you almost certainly have an unintentional yarn-over or a missed decrease.

The k2tog produces a right-leaning decrease that is often used on the right side of a motif, while the ssk produces a left-leaning decrease used on the left side. The visual symmetry of using these in pairs is what creates the classic leaf, feather, and flower shapes you see in traditional lace. In a 116-stitch pattern, these paired decreases appear dozens of times per row, and developing a rhythm for executing them smoothly is part of what makes experienced lace knitters so efficient.

The centered double decrease (slip two stitches together as if to k2tog, knit one, pass the slipped stitches over) decreases two stitches at once while keeping the central stitch perfectly upright. It is the decrease at the tip of a leaf, the point of a diamond, the apex of a chevron. When you see that bold vertical line in a sea of diagonal lines in your finished lace, that is the CDD doing its work.

Wrong-side rows in lace patterns are typically purled across, which gives you a rest from the pattern work and a moment to count and verify your stitches. In some traditions, particularly Shetland, even wrong-side rows carry patterning — this is called “true lace” as opposed to “lace knitting.” Most contemporary patterns favor the simpler approach of patterning only on right-side rows, but knowing the distinction is useful when reading older or traditional patterns.

Blocking: The Step That Makes Everything Beautiful

If you do only one thing differently after reading this guide, make it blocking. Blocking is the process of washing or wetting your finished knitted lace and then pinning or stretching it into its final shape while it dries. It is not merely cosmetic — blocking opens the yarn-overs, evens out the tension, and allows the full design to become visible. An unblocked lace piece and a blocked one look like they were made by different people.

For wool and wool-blend lace, wet blocking is standard. Fill a basin with cool to lukewarm water and add a small amount of wool wash or mild soap. Submerge your knitting and gently press out the air bubbles — do not agitate, as this risks felting. Let it soak for twenty to thirty minutes, then lift it out carefully (the weight of waterlogged yarn can stretch the fabric unpredictably if you just grab a corner) and gently press out the excess water by rolling it in a clean towel. Never wring lace.

Lay the damp piece on your blocking mats and begin pinning it out. For a 116-stitch shawl, start by pinning the center back neckline (if it has one), then the two shoulder points, then the bottom center point. These four anchor points establish the shape, and you can then work around the edges, pinning every few inches or threading blocking wires through a row of edge stitches for a smoother line. Measure frequently to ensure the piece is symmetrical.

The transformation that happens as the piece dries — typically overnight — never gets old. Every time you unpin a blocked piece of lace and hold it up to the light, it is its own small miracle.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Even experienced knitters encounter the same recurring problems in lace work. Knowing how to identify and fix them calmly is the real advanced skill.

Dropped yarn-overs are among the most common errors. Because a yarn-over is just a loop of yarn without a corresponding stitch below it, it can slide off your needle without you noticing. If you count your stitches at the end of a row and find you have one fewer than expected, work back to the likely location and lift the loop back onto the needle. The tricky part is making sure it is mounted in the correct direction — a twisted yarn-over will not form an open hole.

Running two decreases without the corresponding yarn-overs, or vice versa, causes the stitch count to drift. This is where stitch markers within your 116-stitch row become essential, since they allow you to identify exactly which repeat holds the error.

For significant errors that require ripping back, use your lifeline. If you do not have a lifeline in place, drop down stitch by stitch carefully rather than ripping back an entire row — this controlled descent gives you much more precision.

Developing Your Own Lace Intuition

After you have worked several lace patterns and internalized the grammar of yarn-overs and decreases, something interesting starts to happen: you begin to see the logic in new patterns before you even pick up your needles. You look at a chart and immediately understand which decreases are balancing which yarn-overs, where the motif peaks, and how the repeats tile across the row. This intuition is the real reward of serious lace study.

From there, modifying and eventually designing your own lace becomes possible. Perhaps you love a particular leaf motif from one pattern and want to transplant it into a new project. With a solid understanding of how 8-stitch or 12-stitch repeats work, and with a 116-stitch foundation to build on, you have everything you need to start sketching your own charts on grid paper and swatching until the design does what you want.

Lace knitting at this level is less like following instructions and more like having a conversation with the yarn — an ongoing, responsive, deeply satisfying dialogue between your hands, your tools, and the pattern. It rewards patience, precision, and a willingness to pull back and try again. And when the blocking pins come out and you hold the finished fabric up to the window, catching the light through every carefully wrought hole, you will know exactly why generations of knitters before you kept coming back to this beautiful, demanding, endlessly generous craft.