Captured by a Spiderweb - Sara

I've always loved artwork that is insanely intricate, complicated, textural and detailed. Things like the carpet pages from some of the earliest illustrated bibles (Books of Kells, Lindesfarne Gospels, etc), middle eastern/west asian designs, Charleston SC styled ironwork, and tracery on cathedrals. It's a visual feast that ends up consuming the viewer.

And now I've found the knitting equivalent: Lace shawls.

I recently got a copy of "A Gathering of Lace" by Meg Swansen out of our local library. A quick flip through told me this was going to be good. A few hours later I was literally drooling over the gorgeous lace that draped over the pages. This book is delicious. The photography is delicious. I couldn't help myself: I cast on.

Isn't this stunning?! I will conquer...

From 9 stitches to a current 290, I'm knitting in circles a beautiful black mohair spiderweb (shown above in chocolate). I love it! I'm just past the first lace motif as you move out from the center, and it's really not that hard. Yarn overs, right and left decreases, and an occasional sl 1-k2tog-psso centered decrease. That's it.

There's a real connection to the past when working on something like this. I can't decide if I feel like I'm creating something akin to a stained glass rose window or a henna medallion on a prego tummy. Either way, I know the joy God had while creating the world. There's joy in symmetry, delicacy, repetition, order & structure. That was fun, let's do it again. And again. And again. And again.

My only question is, where and how does one wear such a piece of art?