Knit one, read two

It’s taken a little longer to get this post written than I thought but better late than never!

The Class

I had signed up for Anne Hanson‘s Advanced Lace Knitting class and, despite a horrible cold, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t learn as much as I had hoped I would — mainly because I’ve already done a reasonable amount of lace knitting involving the techniques which were covered. Anne’s overview of different types of lace knitting and knitted lace, and the chance to look at some of her extensive collections of swatches were very interesting. I also picked up some tips about knitted-on borders which are already proving useful.

I was right about the yarn I selected for the class sampler project though; it was very hairy. By the end of the class, my black jeans looked like I had had a cat sitting on my lap for hours. I don’t intend to finish the sampler since I really don’t have any use for a doll-sized shawl but I’m not really sure what else I would use the yarn for. I think it will go back in the basket till I can come up with a project where I won’t mind it “shedding”.

The Yarn

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular at the Knit Nation marketplace but thought I might grab some laceweight or fingering yarn for future shawl-knitting. I ended up with the following:

Wollmeise Lacegarn in brilliant blues — partly to see what all the hype is about and partly because they were giving away free Gummi Bears (Steven pointed out that there are cheaper ways to acquire Gummi Bears, which I can’t really argue with but which isn’t really the point.) I’m thinking about using this for a Victorian Lace Today project because the yardage is so good. I’m not even sure I suit blue but I just can’t stop admiring the colours in this.

Old Maiden Aunt — This is an alpaca/merino/silk blend laceweight. No idea what I’ll use it for but the colours are gorgeous and it’s so, so soft. 1,300 yards per 100g is also pretty good yardage.

Fyberspates Thick Nef Lace — an alpaca/silk/cashmere laceweight this time. I’m thinking about something elegant for wearing to work. Not that I need to be particularly elegant at work but something about this yarn just conjures up images of high-powered female New York lawyers. (Don’t ask me why, sometimes it’s better not to investigate the inner workings of my brain too much!)

… that struck fear into my heart recently:

“Join right shoulder seam.”

I know that my fear of seaming is completely irrational — it’s not that difficult, rarely takes as long as I think it will and usually ends well — but for some reason, it’s still the number one reason why it takes me so long to finish any project that needs it.

Feeling a little guilty about the amount of knitting that I’ve been doing for me whilst Steven’s argyle jumper has been languishing unfinished, I decided this week that I was just going to have to be brave and get on with it. I got out my trusty Vogue Knitting, followed their instructions for an “invisible horizontal” seam and tah-dah!

I know it doesn’t exactly look “invisible” but trust me, that’s a really neat seam.

Having successfully conquered the seam, I ploughed on and knitted the neckband.

Next up are the armbands and then:

Join left shoulder seam and neckband seam.

Join side seams with mattress stitch.

It’s taken 3½ weeks to get past “Join right shoulder seam”, any bets on how long it will take me to build up the courage to attempt that little section?

If my actuarial homework looked like this, maybe more of it would get done:

I’m attending Knit Nation this Saturday and this is my homework for the Advanced Lace Knitting class I’m taking in the afternoon. I’m really looking forward to the class, although I’m hoping that the summer cold I’ve developed over the past day or two doesn’t get any worse or I’m not sure I’ll be capable of processing any information.

The tutor is Anne Hanson of Knitspot whose designs I love, even though I haven’t actually knitted any of them yet. Her Honeybee Stole was a definite contender for my wedding shawl and only narrowly lost out to the Myrtle Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today.

It was a bit of a  last minute decision to go to Knit Nation meaning that I’ve ended up in my usual position of nearly running out of time to get my homework finished even though all it consisted of was a simple swatch! It didn’t help that I didn’t actually have any yarn of the appropriate weight for either the homework or for the class itself.  Thanks to the usual excellent service from Get Knitted, I managed to order a skein of the now-discontinued Darling sock yarn from Natural Dye Studio in colourway Isabella.  It arrived in perfect time to be wound and swatched and yet somehow it’s Friday evening and I still haven’t finished!

Although I love the colours in this yarn, I’m not sure how I feel about it in general. There is more alpaca in it than I tend to like, which seems to be giving it a quite “hairy” appearance. I’ll report back next week on both the yarn and the class!

Remember this?

which turned into this:

Well, it’s back and now it looks like this:

Not without a lot more ripping back and re-doing along the way but the front and back are now finished and will match brilliantly after a little blocking. Even better than that, the argyle worked out perfectly and the top of the top brown diamond is exactly where it’s supposed to be (and not three rows earlier, for instance).

Next step is to sew one of the shoulder seams so that I can start knitting the neckband. Given that the temperature in London is currently far too high to have an entire jumper sitting on your lap, that might not be for some time. Fortunately, if it’s too hot to sew it, it is also too hot for Steven to want to wear it!

I mentioned recently that I had a couple of lace shawl designs in progress and I thought I would share a preview of one of them.

This shawl was inspired by the Japanese pattern sourcebook that I reviewed in April. The green version of the pattern is as it originally appears in the book (and on the accompanying CD).

I changed the green to red in an image editor to get a better idea of how the pattern might look in the colour of yarn that I wanted to use.

I found a flower motif in my Vogue Ultimate Knitting Guide that seemed perfect and proceeded to sketch and chart and swatch and then sketch and chart and swatch some more. I originally tried cables for the undulating lines but they weren’t showing up well in the laceweight yarn that I was using so I changed to eyelets instead and this is the final result:

The yarn is the Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Lace that I brought back from honeymoon and it’s beautifully light and soft.

What I haven’t decided yet is whether or not I will add a border. I have a couple of borders in mind but haven’t done any swatching or calculation to see which, if any, I could make fit. I’ve knitted the entire shawl (and worn it!) with just a narrow garter stitch border for now. It does curl slightly at the sides but I’m worried that adding a border will make it too fussy.

The other advantage of not adding a border is that it will make getting the pattern ready for publication much quicker! The chart is ready to go; written instructions are nearly done and I’m just waiting to be able to take some better photographs so that I can put the whole lot together.

The only other thing missing is a name! I’m still waiting for inspiration to strike so if you have any ideas, leave a comment or send me an email. If I use your suggestion, I’ll send you a free copy of the pattern when it’s published.