Monthly Archives: February 2008

After my last post about how half my knitting never gets blogged about, I got to thinking. I get tired of never being able to write about the progress of some of my projects. By the time they’re done, any sticky moments are forgotten with and I just have my lovely finished object to pet. So with the help of a handy jump, I am going to write about everything, and give fair warning to anyone who might spoil a surprise for themselves if they read on. That way, I can write about every stage of a project and, hopefully, there’ll still be a surprise at the end of it.

So today’s post is not for viewing by Australian designers who are called Diane. For the rest of you, click on the link below for more!

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Almost halfway there now. It’s easier to see how it’s constructed now, and spread out like that, it looks pretty impressive. The centre pattern is very simple, so it’s just a case of plugging on with it until I’m done.

This is why I’ve been pacing up and down waiting for the postman for the past few days. I have wanted a copy of this book pretty much since I saw it reviewed in an issue of Interweave Knits. For anyone wanting to design with lace and create their own lace patterns, it’s invaluable. As it’s usually at least £60 on Amazon, when I saw a copy for sale for under £30, I snapped it up.

The book is based on an old lace sampler, with 94 different lace patterns charted out (pattern number 1 is the diagonal lace I used for the Bertie scarf!). But then it goes on further, explaining how to adjust patterns, incorporate elements from different patterns together to create new lace patterns and create your own lace from scratch. With this being my Year Of Lace, I think it’s only right that I use it to create something lovely and original of my own.

It doesn’t feel as if there’s been much progress for a weekend’s work.

Three inches of knitting at a push. Surprisingly, that’s 20% of the shawl done. The advantage of knitting a shawl upwards and inwards is that although I had to cast on 375 stitches, the number decreases as the shawl progresses. So by the time I’m 60% of the way, I’ll be knitting a row a minute (or something).

I’ve finished the border charts and am now on the first repeat of the centre pattern. It’s a very repetitive pattern so should be easy to memorise.

I just love the cashmere. As I said, it wasn’t a hardship to frog the Sea Silk, and yes, there was the lure of snuggly cashmere goodness to ease the pain considerably. This is one item that is not going to be gifted to anyone. It’s all for ME!

So with my secret knitting finally over with for the time being, I thought it would be time to properly begin My Year Of Lace by finishing off the Dolphin Lace Scarf.

Now I hadn’t picked this up for about six months, but still had my notes showing which pattern row I was working on. The pattern is complicated by the fact that the dolphin pattern on either side is only charted once but you have to knit it for each side by doing the left-hand side one row off from the right. so you knit row 1 of the chart, then row 2 and then row 1 again. Confused?

I had been working the decreases as mirror images (e.g. replacing k2tog with ssk) and feeling very clever. Until I picked up the scarf again. I was completely lost. Let that be a lesson to anyone not to abandon a project for months without making infinite numbers of notes. *wags finger warningly*

So now my scarf looks like this:

I’m really not so desperately sad. The cast on was too tight and I’d done so few repeats that it was scarcely traumatic ripping the whole thing out. I’ll cast it on again sometime, but for now two skeins of cashmere and Ene’s Scarf are calling me for a weekend of fun!

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BTW, I think I have just got the most amazing bargain on Amazon. I don’t want to jinx it by saying anything til I have my purchase in my hot little hands, but ooooh it’s a good ‘un!