Socks, Spinning, and Some Lace

March 18th, 2007

Lots going on in my knitting world lately. You know I’ve got this sock heel project going on, and I’m loving it. Each heel swatch is so quick to knit, and since I’ve already done all the techniques I know I’ll be learning a lot with each new one I knit. You know I’ve got some spinning going on, and in the next few days I’ll show some of my new yarn (beautiful colors!). You also know I plan to knit a vest soon, but I  think that’s going to wait a bit longer.

A few days ago I decided to start a lace shawl project from A Gathering of Lace. As I was looking through I noticed one of the patterns I liked used the exact kind of yarn that I already have in my small-yet-adequate stash. It’s JaggerSpun’s Zephyr Wool-Silk, and I think I may have just enough. I have two 600yd cones, and the pattern calls for just over 1100 yards.

If you’ve got the book, the pattern starts on page 20. It seems like these patterns aren’t named. It’s actually so far a pretty easy lace pattern to work. Once I got the right needles (KnitPicks Options), I set right to work. The only problem has been that I’ve had to rip back and re-knit almost every row. Yes, I did say it was easy. Apparently I’m having to adjust my knitting habits for lace. I’m not used to knitting something that requires this much constant concentration, and re-checking. I’ve realized that I have to knit this when I have few distractions so that I can make sure not to miss a yarn over, or knit the wrong row. The center of the shawl is made up of a 2-row pattern repeat, so it’s really easy to get lazy and think I’m in a rhythm. Just when I think I’ve got things nice and steady, I realize I’m short a few stitches. It’s definitely a lesson in avoiding over-confidence.

Now what I need to do is choose my next heel pattern, as I’ve already finished my fourth technique (Dutch Heel, pictures soon). Any suggestions?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 6:35 pm and is filed under Knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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