About seven years ago, I used Barbara Walker’s Diamond Mesh pattern to knit a large, very soft kid mohair stole to wrap around an old friend recovering from back surgery. The memory of her surprised, thrilled face as I gave it to her is one of the great little joys of my life. I wasn’t about to tell her, though, that the pattern had driven me nuts: I could see how it should be so easy, but it just wasn’t coming to me. How do you see when it’s a yo, k1, yo at the top of a triangle and when it’s a k3? I’d kept picking it up, working on it awhile, and putting it down to go work on something I could actually relax with while doing. It had taken me two months to finish.

Last week, going through my stash, I stumbled across a partial ball of Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight in jade and one of Misti baby alpaca laceweight in forest, and the two of them together! But there wasn’t as much of the Zephyr as I was comfortable with. I didn’t want to run out.

The day before, someone had posted on one of the knitting lists that she had some expensive cashmere, couldn’t afford to buy more, wanted to make a really nice gift with it, but what? When she wasn’t sure she had enough? I told her, go for a mesh lace pattern and largeish needles to stretch the yardage out; it’ll work.

Time to take my own advice. Let’s try that Diamond Mesh pattern again.

Four days. Fingertip-to-fingertip, and the best part of it, was, I immediately got it! It was intuitively obvious, just like I had known it could be if I only had enough experience. And somehow this time the math of it, the numbers and the geometry in its structure, felt inherently satisfying, like a well-written piece of music.