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June 28, 2005
First up - my lace project that I recently picked up again. I've been thinking about
working on it ever since I finished the Justine skirt, but now that the Summer of Lace
knitalong has begun, it was just the inspiration I needed. I know I shouldn't take much
credit since Wendy set it up and everything, but I did notice I was the first person in
her comments to suggest starting a lace knitalong. So I will sit here and be just a little
bit proud of myself :-) This is my first knitalong since starting my blog, so I was excited
to be able to post about my progress.
I started this scarf in, I think, winter 2003. I wanted to make a scarf for my mom, and it
had to be pink. I was flipping through pattern books in the library and came across
this one. It is from Scarves and Shawls: The Best of Knitter's Magazine. The two
yarns called for were prohibitively expensive (3 skeins of Richesse et Soie and 2
skeins of Douceur et Soie by Knit One, Crochet Too). I went to my LYS in Northfield,
and they hooked me up with 3 balls of GGH Soft Kid Girlie in a cotton candy pink
(#55). I had no clue at this time that lace knitting might be considered "hard." I just
read the instructions in the front of the book on how to do a YO, SSK, K2TOG, and
provisional cast-on and went from there.
These pictures are from a week or two ago when I was still working on the first ball of
yarn. Once I finished the first ball, I put the first end on a stitch holder and then
picked up the provisional cast-on with the second ball and started going in the
opposite direction. Of course, since I had never crocheted before, my provisional
cast-on didn't just zip apart the way it was supposed to, but eventually I was able to
pick up all the mohair stitches and get going in the opposite direction. Knitting the
scarf in this manner means that the leaves will face down on both sides when the
scarf is worn - a look I think my mom will really like.
This project certainly hasn't been without its challenges which is why I hadn't touched
it in almost 2 years until now. See if you can see the big problem below.
So, of course, there were some issues early on with reading the chart and coming out
with the right number of stitches each row. Usually I just knit the extra stitch together
or did knit instead of a K2TOG to get the right number. Looking back now with an
additional 2 years of knowledge, there are definitely mistakes, but it's not awful.
However, as you can see above, at one point I managed to skip a whole row and so
mixed up the right and wrong sides. Thus, you will see a chunk of purls and then a
chunk of knits.
I let this project sit for awhile (meaning years), to pursue other and more interesting at
the time new projects, and when I went to pull it back out a few weeks ago in honor of
the knitalong, I had to decide whether or not to frog it and start again. Realistically, I
wouldn't have been frogging that much in terms of time as my better knitting skills
would have allowed me to get back to that point pretty quickly. But first I put it to the
DH test. After staring at it for quite some time, he noticed the occasional mistake in
the pattern where a YO or K2TOG was off. But he could not, after much urging from
me, identify the major mistake at all. I figured, if he couldn't find it when he was
looking for it, and if it was going to be behind the neck anyway, and if it was for my
mom who knows much less about knitting than Daniel, then I would just pick it up
where I left off. In a way, it's a fun reminder of how far I have come in the last 2 years.
My mom will never notice, but I can look back on it as a learning experience. Plus,
who wants to frog mohair!?!
Hopefully in the next few days I will be able to download my newest pics which show
the scarf after the second ball has been started so I can show you my pretty darn
good if i do say so myself join of the provisional cast-on.
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