Rows Red

“It HAS begun!” (Cue Mortal Kombat themsesong.)

The Great Lace Race is on, and as with all shawls that start with only a handful of stitches, I’m feeling good. I’ve never knit shawls quite like these before, but I have high hopes for both the pleasure of the knitting and their finished beauty. Fingers crossed that my hands hold out. My current library rampage could actually help me in the quest to balance the need to knit as much as possible and not hurt myself in the process. A good book is both a powerful draw and a way to rest my hands that doesn’t feel like inaction.

I’ve never attempted anything quite like this before, working two lace projects at the same time, both having immutable deadlines. I had hoped that this would be the year I finally made the Garden Path Stole, especially after scoring the needed extra yardage of the discontinued Moss colorway, but I doubt that’s going to happen. Still, I’ll have these two gorgeous shawls to show for my time, and I can’t complain about that. I think that it’s fitting to work on the bright shawl during the day on my work breaks and the dark shawl when I’m home at night. Fingers crossed, tick tock.

Flamenco, just starting to get interesting.

Flamenco is coming along nicely, as you can see. This pattern has less stockinette than Painted Sun, and I’m already past the first diamond motif. It feels good to be starting the actual lace work, seeing how the picture paints itself in yarn overs is what makes knitting lace fun after all. Mom’s not hot on the color, but since it’s my shawl, and not hers (which she loves), that’s all right. The color is devilishly difficult to capture, sometimes it looks like an old penny (low light) and other times it’s brighter. Copper isn’t a color I normally like to wear or work with anyway, but it’s the only one of her two wedding colors that works against a black dress, so we’ll manage.

"Sin", from Bittersweet Woolery, in Sweet Nothings Silken.

Now that the yarn Jess commissioned has passed inspection I am beside myself with squee. I adore how it came out, you can see and read more about the process over at the Confessional, and while you’re there why not check out some of the more recent posts? Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Gadzooks, how I love this yarn! The wool/silk blend is very nice in the hands, and it takes the dye like you wouldn’t believe. The colorway is called “Sin” (as in “living in…”) in honor of Jess and her honey’s prolonged cohabitation. I’ll be skeining it all up and labeling so that it can be parceled out to the other bridesmaids on Saturday… which, by the way, is Cummington. Yay!

The infant stages of Painted Sun.

I’m only a few rows in, but now it’s ON.

Tags: dyeing, Knitting

Well, I wanted copper and boy did I ever get copper. Perhaps the yarn is too copper? To be fair, this picture is brighter than the more chocolately orange I ended up with.

Lucky Penny

What you’re looking at here is the Cognac (beige) Alpaca Silk lace yarn I showed last week. Mom’s wedding colors are copper and maroon. Since my dress is black, copper is the smart choice as to which color to dye the shawl yarn. I mixed myself up some “Bright Orange” dye, of which they are NOT exaggerating, and poured just a portion of it into the pot. Seriously, the water was still clear, I didn’t use a ton, not that you can tell by how bright the yarn came out. Would you believe I gave it a second dye bath with “Reddish Brown” to tone it down? I figure if I hate it when I’m done with the shawl I’ll overdye it again to dull it down even further.

This shawl pattern is fairly busy once it gets going, so I wanted to dye the yarn as close to solid as possible. Between the two dyebaths, it definitely came out as close to solid as I’ve ever dyed. The yarn is silky and absolutely luxurious to the touch, but… it’s a poorly put up, two-strand lace yarn. What we’re working with here is two, two-ply strands that are barely twisted together. What a pain in the ass to work with! Well, to be fair, it’s only really annoying when I have to k2tog, otherwise it’s ok. Technically I could just dye up the KP Gloss Lace I bought myself last month, but I’m going to soldier on.

Humble beginnings.

I cast on last night before the Lost finale and fought the entire finale to knit the same 11 rows over and over again. I knew I was missing something, and it was driving me NUTS. Who knew that stockinette and M1s could be so infuriating! Cue this morning: STILL missing something, still starting over repeatedly. I gave in and asked for help on a Ravelry board and by 10 a.m., voila! I had my answer. It was both my own fault, and a clarification that the designer could have put on the same page as the damned charts. *breathe* Everything’s fine now. I can do this.

Tags: dyeing, Knitting