Cables & Lace Update

I've been good and knitting away on the Cables & Lace Kimono Cardy.. it's a really fun knit and now that I've done something like this I don't think I can ever do a stockinette-only sweater/cardigan.

It was kinda scrunched up and tight-looking at first, but after a light steam blocking, the lace opened up and the yarn kinda 'relaxed' - this is pretty typical of Sublime yarn, I think, maybe because of the silk content?

Here is where I am as of today, I have to finish off the belt/tie (which is like 200+ rows of 7 stitches!), and then pick up and do the ribbing around the neck area. Glad that this should be done before baby is due!

Cables & Lace Kimono Cardigan

There's no other way to say it - I'm a masochist.

My little one is due in about 5 weeks, and when that happens, I don't know if I will even have time to breathe, let alone knit. So the most practical thing to do (knitting-wise that is), would be to knit baby items, or small quick projects like hats, scarves, dishcloths.. you get the idea.

Instead, I cast on for this.

It's my biggest and most ambitious project to date - I've only ever done 1 cable project, and about 3 lace projects in my entire knitting life. Not to mention that this pattern is 10 pages (!) long, is for the 'Intermediate' knitter (I consider myself newbie-ish with a phobia for anything tough) and requires more than 1000m of yarn. All I know is, I saw the pattern, I have the yarn for it, and I cast-on. And after the first 10 rows (at which point the pattern says 'following pattern as established above), I spent another 2 hours trying to figure out which charts to follow and when.

Thankfully, the knitting itself is not tough, it was the actual interpretation of the pattern that got me freaked. So I went to the stationary shop and bought post-it flags and pasted them all over my pattern, and would painstakingly move the flags down each row whenever I worked it. If the flags should drop or anyone should move them by mistake, I will kill them.

In other less stressful knitting news, I found stray balls of yarn in my stash.. they were about 10 years old. Took 2 hours to crochet this little summer hat in a nubbly cotton yarn. It finished up so quickly and turned out so cute that I wanted to go out and buy more of that yarn (go figure).

Feeling high from my superfast hat, I started another bobble hat of my own design. As I was crocheting the third row of bobbles, I noticed that it was an entirely different shade of green from the top of the hat. Knitting 101 - pls make sure that dyelots are the same? Yeah - try telling that to stray little balls of yarn whose labels have disintegrated.

So the bobble hat sits unfinished as I try to convince myself that the yellow-ish tinge in the third row of the bobbles is actually a "design element".

Kimono Shawl - to block? or not?

I've never been a very adventurous person. This was evident when I finally bound off the last stitch on my kimono shawl at 3am last night, looked at the blue squiggley pile that's occupied the past 4 weeks of my life, and decided that I will not block it.

Yes - you heard right. I just cannot bear to think of the multiple potential problems that might arise with blocking - what if the color ran? what if i used the wrong shampoo & the yarn felted or something? what if... what if...it stretched & stretched like the rubber arms on that Fantastic 4 guy? So in my sleep deprived state, I thought it looked very pretty just as it was and didn't need blocking.

This morning my inner Aries decided to show up, and I worked up my courage to block it. It wasn't easy as I had used 3.6mm needles at 1 end, 3.0mm in the middle, and 3.25mm needles at the other end. Long story .. see earlier blog entry. Let's just say I spent a lot of time on my knees arranging pins.

100+ pins later

Blocked size : 19inches x 70inches (I only did 23 pattern reps but it's definitely long enough)

Posing prettily with the paper gift bag that I happened to find that matches so perfectly

I found an entire row missing only when I took this shot - it's cropped out of this picture, no sense posting a permanent record of my mistakes now, is there?

I'm so relieved that this is finally done. Today for the first time in an entire month, I am not knitting lace. And guess what? My fingers feel funny when I pick up my 4-ply cotton. I miss lace, I miss the floati-ness of Zephyr yarn....... I cant wait to cast on for another lace shawl!

Learning to Lace

It all started with this, and this.

I had wanted to knit a thank you gift for a special person. Feverishly clicking on links, I chanced upon the sites above, and images of my recipient casually draping her handknitted lace shawl while attending a glitzy dinner, starting floating across my mind.

(Incidentally, I also started dreaming of a lace shawl softly floating behind me as I walked serenely along the beaches, the light-weight warmth of the shawl shielding me from the chilly sea breeze. Yes I'm aware there is no chill in the breezes where I live, but it's my dream, honey)

So despite the fact that I didn’t know which way a ‘yarn-over’ was supposed to go, I was determined that I would learn lace. And then I will go find a chilly beach to walk on.

This is the yarn I used. G-o-r-g-e-o-u-s. Jaggerspun Zephyr (wool/tussah silk laceweight yarn) in Aegean Blue, and when it arrived I was so excited. It was soft and light, had a slight sheen, had just the right amount of ‘spring’ to it, and the color was saturated and not at all Sentosa Musical Fountain Blue as I had half-feared. All in all, a very promising beginning.

I spent days scouring the web for the perfect beginner lace pattern. It had to be easy and yet look professional when done. A fellow knitter had shown me her Madli and she assured me that it was relatively easy. It was near the end of our conversation when she oh-so-casually slipped in, “oh & at the end you just graft it together”. Nonononono…. Grafting does not feature in my dreams, thank you very much.

So I picked a simpler pattern – Kimono Shawl from Folk Shawls, took a deep breath, cast-on, and knit. And knit, and knit, and knit – for 20 whole garter stitch rows. Where’s the lace!? I wanna learn lace!

By the end of the first lace repeat, I had a sore left thumb. I was using 3.6mm Clover metal circulars. Between the joint which kept snagging the lace weight yarn, and my tendency to strangle the stitches, I was shoving stitches past the joint more than I was knitting. But the times when I actually got to knit, was really really fun! I was hooked.

So I went to buy a pair of Addis (well, it’s either that or I spend the money on band-aids, and those are not as fun). The slight problem was that the shop only had Addis in 3.0mm. Well, I figured… I’ll just hv to learn how to knit looser.

Ouch. Wonky stitches and irregular holes

If I almost close both eyes and squint at the monitor, it looks quite pretty in a blurry way :)

I was assured that blocking would do wonders. I think people were trying to be kind.