Adventures of a Desi Knitter

Thanks so much for all your input! I tentatively decided to set aside the variegated for the Spirit of the Southwest, because the colours are just right and plus, I bought the yarn in Colorado during a trip of the Southwest…. somehow seems right. And I decided it’s not a problem if it’s warm, really. I also wound a skein of the pink Malabrigo and actually started the F&F shawl. But then, somehow, my hands reached out to the yarn I had left over from the Clapotis I made this spring. And before I knew it, I had cast on for the Leaf Lace shawl.

It’s weird. The yarn almost chose itself for the project. I was a little wary of doing something big with the leftover since I have no idea how much I have left, but I think I’ll get a medium size wrap out of this. Whatever the size, I think it’s going to look gorgeous. And it goes fast! I’ve already done six repeats in two days.

I think the key to lace and variegated yarns is to pick a relatively simple motif, and to knit at a slightly looser gauge than you would for a solid yarn. This allows the YOs to show up more clearly through the mist of shades. It’s definitely more difficult to see the SSks and the K2togs clearly, but
if it’s an identifiable motif like a leaf, then it works very well.
I love this colourway, just knitting with it and watching the shades come up on the needles is a joy.

Tags: Leaf Lace Shawl, Lace work by desiknitter
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I had this post almost completed, links and all, when it froze on me and I had to restart. I thought people moved to Macs to avoid this but clearly, hanging and rebooting is still something I have to do.

I have been casting around (instead of casting on) for a new lace shawl project, and cannot decide for the life of me how to pair yarn and pattern. So I thought I’d ask for your opinions.

Here are the shawls: Kimono shawl, Print O’ the Wave Stole, Leaf Lace Shawl  and Spirit of the Southwest shawl.

The yarns: Variegated ochre-green jumperweight  and Malabrigo "rich earth" (the wound up skeins), both 1700 yards or so each. I also have 3600 yards of pale pink Malabrigo laceweight like the shade in Eunny’s kimono shawl.

Questions: 1) Will the variegated yarn look good in any of these patterns? In terms of retaining its hues and not obscuring the stitch patterns? I don’t like any of the Koigu-derived garter stitch triangular shawls.
2) Which one should I do with the "rich earth" Malabrigo?

3) For the 3600 yds of pale pink, I thought either the Irish Diamond Shawl or the Frost Flowers and Leaves Shawl. But the shape of the first, especially when people hold it up like that in photos makes it look weird and I don’t know how it drapes. The second, well, it’s easily the most gorgeous thing, but folding it in half? Feels almost criminal and that is making me think twice about circular and square shawls. What do you guys think? Any recos for this yarn, or should I just swap two skeins with someone for another shade?

ed. to change the link to the Frost.. shawl. It was the earlier one that was causing my machine to hang by asking me to download some weird plugin. Hopefully nobody clicked on it before I managed to figure it out.

Tags: Lace work by desiknitter
9 Comments »

This cardigan pattern is great once you’ve begun, which is easier said that done. And then it’s so much fun.. okay, okay. no more poor rhyming attempts. Long day. Back to BPT (incidentally, this whole naming of patterns is weird enough, but does anyone know why BPT? Said very quickly it sounds like some rude stuff Calvin says to Susie Derkins with his tongue stuck out.).

As I said in the earlier comments to Quill, the pattern is very oddly written in the beginning. Here’s how it explains the first two rows:

Beginning with row 2 of the  cable patterns, work Set Up Row [WS] as follows:   Sl 1, p1, CB, p4[5,
7, 8], CF, place marker, p4[6, 6, 6], CB, place marker, p6[8, 9, 10], DC, p6[8, 9, 10], CF, place marker, p4[6, 6, 6], CB, place marker, p4[5, 7, 8], CF, p2. Inc row [RS]: Sl 1, *work in patt to 1 st before first marker, k1 into st below, k1, sl marker, work cable sts in patt, k1, k1 into st below, rep from * 3 times more. [inc 8 sts each round.] Basically you repeat these two rows until you divide for the body.

Since the cable stitches in the first (WS) row is only knit-purl with no twists, it’s a breeze. So are rows 2-4; the twist happens in row 5, which is the RS. And there comes the problem. I took the cable positions on the RS to be the mirror versions of how they were placed on the WS. In other words, if you knit the WS row as written above, doing CB, then CF, then DC, then on the RS you’d go DC, CF, CB, right?

Wrong.

As the pattern is pictured, even on the RS (row 5), you have to do the cables in the same order that they are  written in the set-up row, i.e. CB, CF, CB, DC, CF, CB, CF. Only if you do this will you find that the cables slant the way the should, as they are pictured (which is actually very graceful!) I found this a little confusing, and only after several froggings of ugly cables that had lost their way did I figure it out. (Of all the people who’ve made this cardigan nobody has mentioned this save Quill, so maybe this is normal to most, but it certainly wasn’t to me.)

Anyway. Once the starter issues were resolved, however, it’s going splendidly. I am a teeny bit worried about puckering at the increases (am using  the  KRL/KLL (Knit Right Loop/Knit Left Loop) technique of increases which make it very even, but tend to the tighter side. Have to be careful to do them a little loosely, but then you have to worry about ugly gaps at the raglans.

Tags: BPT Cabled cardigan by desiknitter
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Hey folks, am back in the US, after an exhausting, but fun-filled holiday. Time to start thinking about new syllabi, students, campus and deal with the million small problems that moving to a new place presents. So far, so good. I have only one major problem to deal with: an electric stove in my kitchen, which so far is resisting any and all attempts on my part to get to know it better, heating up sullenly and burning the bottoms of the pots I place on it. But I am determined to win it over.

Return also to knitting. I’m sick of socks and dpns and don’t want to see another sock for a while. I’m halfway through the second birchleaf sock, but it will keep. I wanted something more substantial than a size 0 to hold in my hands, so I started this:

It’s a swatch for the BPT cabled cardigan from Knitty.  Am using the Lapaz yarn I bought from Laura’s in Colorado in June. I wanted to make another Rogue, because I’m really not happy with the one I made, but I think this yarn is too busy and variegated for those intricate Celtic cables. This pattern seems to have the right mix of cables and stockinette. Plus it’s top-down with no finishing, which is always nice!

Problem: gauge. I’m running at 5.5 stitches to the inch on size 4s, and any larger needle size is making the fabric too holey. Need to do some maths to figure out how to get it to fit.

I’m also toying with the idea of doing a button band instead of a zipper. I hate sewing in zippers. In the swatch above, to the left of the cable I tried doing a 5-stitch rib with the knit stitches twisted. Seems to give a firm and defined band that doesn’t pucker, and I’m planning to knit it as I make the cardigan body. Let’s see. I’m not that big a fan of rolled edges, but this one has an I-cord edging, which also promises to be interesting.

Hope everyone’s been having a good summer! I’m just beginning to catch up on my blog reading, and looks like most people have gone nuts with lace! If you haven’t seen it already, you must see Melissa’s Shetland Tea shawl. She has made so many of the Gathering of Lace shawls, all of them gorgeous, but this one is a total stunner.

Tags: BPT Cabled cardigan by desiknitter
13 Comments »