The next month is going to see a lot of knitting to make little progress. My plan is to make the Alpine Lace Shawl 6' long or so. Last night I blocked out what I had knit so far, to see how much I'd knit, and if the ball I had would be enough.My calculations tell me I've got enough to knit a 42" shawl. And that tells me I need to order another ball of yarn. One ball is either 1200 yards (per website) or 903 yards *(per ball band). If I'd've gotten a 100 gram ball, I wouldn't have this problem ... but I didn't, so I do, and the big challenge is going to be figuring out WHERE in the color pattern to join the balls. It's so subtly vareigated that it wasn't
until yesterday that I realized I hadn't knit a full repeat of the color pattern yet. I thought that little blip of blue towards the beginning was it. It wasn't. Now, looking carefully at the ball, I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten to the purplest purple section either. So, for the next month and longer, I shall be knit-knit-knitting away at this. It blocks 18" wide nicely, so I'm glad I added the extra pattern multiple (7 diamonds and 5 leaf motifs, instead of 6 and 4). I also didn't see any dropped stitches.
The Jaywalker socks are still on the needles for my traveling project, and I probably should put a pair of slippers for me on my to-do list. The felted pair I made two or three years ago has more holes than sole left. Resoling is an option, but the heel is just about gone as well, and there's a mild breeze on my toes as well ... so starting from scratch is probably the way to go.
One nice thing about the Alpine Lace ... I don't have to worry about the fine yarn catching on the needle join. Unless I'm spreading the project out for admiration/measuring/blocking, it never gets off the needle portion of my interchangeable circs. I could almost knit it on 5" sock needles, but I think a stitch or two might run off the end every once in a while.
Like like they did when my dog accidentally got tangled in the lace and dragged it halfway across the downstairs. EEEEK!
EEEK! is right! I had my cat get tangled up in one of my socks one night.....nightmare!
ReplyDeleteBEAUTIFUL shawl!
Your Alpine is looking terrific! I, too, and knitting this shawl (but I'm not in the KAL). I really like the extra center repeat and your yarn is showing up lovely, too.
ReplyDeleteI am watching intently as you knit this as I have a ball of that yarn and when I sampled it thought it was very stiff so I haven't yet used it.
ReplyDeleteDid you wet block your sample and did it get any softer?
Good luck and thanks for sharing
I am finding the yarn very soft. I blocked my sample by pinning it out, and then spritzing it. It's quite drapey - much like my Zephyr shawls.
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