Pinks and greys
Thanks so much for all the sock pattern suggestions, everyone. I am eyeing all of Cookie A’s patterns, especially the new ones! But after swatching for "hedera", and for the "smoking hot" ones for my variegated skein, I decided that this particular Trekking grey yarn was meant to be a pair of Jaywalkers. I’ve said this before, you know how a yarn sometimes almost wills itself to be something no matter how hard you try to do something different with it? The dark shades in this skein made it quite difficult to try something complicated, although my efforts introduced me to something wonderful in the process: The Walker Treasury Project. What a wonderful resource! I was trying out some lace repeats to develop a sock pattern of my own from the Barbara Walker volumes I have, and when I googled the names
of the stitches a lot of them showed up here. I’m planning to join the project myself in the summer.
Like Spud, I also reduced the number of stitches for the Jaywalker pattern (76 cast-on was waaay too large for me) and with 64 and just two repeats, it’s nice and snug. I’m doing them toe-up, short-row as usual, and might increase a few stitches from the ankle up. So far I quite like this Trekking yarn, although I imagine I’m going to be left with quite a lot of it after the pair is done.
I also started something else. Seeing the lovely pink flowers all around me here (and also the gorgeous pinks cropping up on various blogs) made me pull out my Malabrigo laceweight in Damask Rose. Mmmmmm Malabrigo.
I had set this yarn aside for something complicated like Frost Flowers or the Sampler Stole from Gathering of Lace, but once again, it seems destined to be something else. I got a lovely pink and grey silk salwar kameez as a gift that this yarn shade will go well with. So I thought I might make a light wrap out of it first, and then maybe use the rest for a cropped shrug/sweater of sorts. Let’s see.
So this is the beginning of the "North Sea Shawl" from Cheryl Oberle’s Folk Shawls book. The yarn is held double on size 6, but after an initial blocking I think I might frog, reduce the number of repeats and go up a size to make it a little drapier. I knit this very quickly; the pattern is a variation on Feather and Fan, and it’s the right combination of mindless and interesting knitting that I need right now.
Spring break begins tomorrow! I have a paper due for a workshop that I have to do during break, but just not having to go in thrice to teach means I have some time to actually sit and write something (other than a blog entry, ie!) and I am excited about being able to do that. Am also looking forward to seeing the Namesake tomorrow.