It has definitely been a year of weddings this year… I’ve been invited to 7, and wedding #4 or 5 (I lost count!) is this weekend. I’m flying home tomorrow morning. Which means it’s spectacular that I finally finished knitting the bride’s wedding garter last night.
My friend who is getting married has been in my life a very long time- I remember when she joined our table for lunch in 3rd grade. It’s amazing that we’ve been able to stay in touch, and I’m so happy to be a part of her special day.
I’ve knit 4 wedding garters this year. The first two were from a pattern by Diane Willet. I really love this pattern, and I was happy with the results.
Rebecca's Garter (Diane's pattern)
A few months ago, another friend asked me to knit a garter for her. She’s a very small person (her thighs are only 14 inches around… I’m jealous!!!), and I was afraid that this garter would look huge on her. It also takes a long time to knit, so I decided that I would benefit from redesigning Diane’s brilliant pattern. I wanted to make it skinnier, with smaller lace on the sides and with only one ribbon.
Here’s a photo of my finished design, which Diane graciously gave me permission to post online for the use of others:
Angie's Garter (my redesign)
You can see that it looks very similar. Here’s a close up of the lace before I put the elastic through it- here you can see the differences in the lace.
I didn’t like using bias tape for the casing for the elastic because it didn’t seem very formal, so I went to JoAnn’s to look for a substitute. I ended up finding a scrap of 100% silk fabric that PERFECTLY matched my pretty merino lace yarn, and that’s really the way to go. I bet it feels better on your leg, too.
Anyway, I just posted the pattern on Ravelry here. I had some problems with the full .pdf because it was pretty big, so the version on Ravelry only contains the pattern itself. The full version, complete with detailed instructions and pictures that show how to finish the garter can be found here.
This is not a great pattern for learning lace, just because the tiny needles make it difficult, but if you have some experience knitting lace, it’s not difficult at all. The repeats are decently easy to memorize.
I’ll hopefully get some cute pictures of the garter on the bride’s leg this weekend, so I’ll post those, too.
[...] 3, 2009 My friend Christy just posted her wedding garter pattern on [...]