stash, knit, repeat

It’s done! It’s done! The Cleopatra Wrap is done!

Pattern: Cleopatra Wrap from Sensual Knits, pattern by Miriam Felton

Yarn: Sundara Silk Lace, “Copper over Bamboo” (from the first Seasons Club)

Time Elapsed: Almost 4 months, but during most of that time the stole was sitting with just 7 rows done. Early pregnancy brain strikes. This is a fairly quick lace project, definitely under a month of actual knitting.

Notes/Modifications: The only way I really deviated from the pattern was that the Sundara is about 300 yards short of the recommended bamboo yarn. I still got a sizeable stole, about 20 inches x 73 inches, but I definitely could have blocked it wider if I hadn’t run out of yarn. I couldn’t think of a project better suited to this luscious stuff, though.

The stole is gossamer-light, the color is subtle and beautiful. I think words and pictures fail to adequately describe the finished product–you have to feel it. This stuff is toddler-steal-worthy.

He was very upset when I explained to him that the stole needed a bath, and he had to take it off.

The pattern is a nice one, even if it stretches on a little bit in the middle. The construction, which I’ve written about before, is totally groovy. You begin with a border, put the stitches on a spare needle, cast on the other border, and knit until you’re done. Then graft the two pieces together. On the one hand, it does get all of the most fun knitting out of the way first, which might contribute to the sloggy feeling of the middle. On the other hand, you waste no yarn. I think I had all of 2g left. And the borders match!

I think there’s the slightest of errors in the pattern–when you’re knitting the first border, the instructions say to complete the first chart, thus ending with a WS row. You end on a RS row coming from the other direction, and this means two pure knit rows together between the last WS row worked on the first piece and the graft row itself. Especially given the placement of the graft, this isn’t really noticeable, but I think it would look better if both pieces had ended on a RS row.

Obviously, this minor mistake (which I didn’t really think about until the piece was blocked) isn’t enough to hamper my enjoyment of the stole, which I love to pieces. And I finished it just in time for the first installment of the next round of Seasons Club, which just happens to start with more silk lace.

(It’s damn hard, I’ve found, to take decent self-portraits when hugely pregnant, but there are many more shots including more detail in flickr and the FO gallery here.)

Let’s just say that I’m not the world’s most patient person, generally.

Then there’s the pregnancy (officially reached: the bloated cranky stage), the upcoming move (omg omg 2.5 weeks omg omg), nervousness about a thousand things big and small that aren’t done yet (eek preschool waiting lists for crying out loud)…

…well, to nobody’s surprise, these things aren’t magically combining into a relaxed, summery, stress-free mood around here. It’s even starting to affect my knitting.

To be fair, it’s not only the stress that’s making me obsessively check my progress on the little kitchen scale. (40% done.) (Not that I’ve checked within the last hour of knitting time.) (Twice.) The stress plays a part, I’m sure, but so does the fabric slowwwly coming from my needles. In a perfect world, lace would not look like fiber vomit right up until the moment it’s pinned out. Since this world isn’t perfect, I occasionally get glimpses of texture that make me long for an FO.

The rest of the time, this gorgeous yarn looks like total crap. Seriously. I don’t know how it’s possible, either.

The knitting is going well, though. Now that I’m past the edging, the lace is so easy I can do it anywhere: Next to Jacob while he builds yet another train track, in front of the tv at night, talking with other knitters. It’s really nice to know that I can just knit and knit and knit, basically until I run out of yarn, without a care. Like toe-up socks on a larger scale. As a reminder, this is the construction allowing that:

Knit edging 1, knit edging 2 and then the body of the stole, graft. Also, remember what I said about the pinning giving the lace grace and fluidity? This is what I meant by that–the bottom edging isn’t pinned out at all–it’s what the stole looks like hanging from the needles. (More or less, anyway.) Oh, and the size difference there is lying more than a bit–the spare needle I have the first edging on is quite a bit longer and gives the stole more space to spread out.

Relaxing knitting though it is, and as impatient as I am to get the shawl done, I still feel like I need something else on the needles. Preferably socks.

I might make faster progress if I could make up my mind about the pattern. Or the yarn. At least I’ve narrowed the latter down to a particular brand?

One of my favorite things about this knitblogging community is reading running commentary about works-in-progress–seeing how projects take shape, getting fresh impressions of how a particular knit goes rather than the sum-up feelings at the end, the vicarious thrill of others’ triumphs and the keen empathy when I read about a stumbling block. The creative process fascinates me, and I love to think that I might be able to offer others the same glimpses they grant me.

I was looking through past entries on a shawl I knit, the other day, and noticed two things I don’t like about my own blogging: When I do take notes, they’re never as detailed or useful a year down the road as they seemed when I wrote them, and my WIP posts are much less frequent than they used to be. Part of the latter, of course, is that I’m doing a lot of baby stuff lately. Most of the knitting is done within a week, so there’s only an opportunity for one or two posts at most for this stuff. But I think some of it is laziness on my part, too–it’s tough to get good pictures of WIPs, particularly something like lace or colorwork that looks (let’s be honest) less than appetizing pre-blocking.

Still, to increase my own satisfaction and reward from what I’m doing here, I’m really going to try to make an effort to (a) better catalog my thoughts and impressions and problems and solutions while I’m actually knitting a piece, and (b) post more WIP shots. So here we go!

I’m mostly focusing on gift knitting this week, but while I waited for the yarn to arrive in the mail I picked up the Cleopatra Wrap (ravelry link here) I started ages ago. I’m knitting it in the Sundara silk lace I received as part of the Seasons Club that just ended, and I put it aside after only 7 rows back in January because I couldn’t for the life of me follow the simple chart. While preggo brain is still definitely in evidence, I’ve come to my knitting senses again and found the lace both engaging and easy this time around. The pattern uses what I think is a really neat construction: You cast on, do the edging chart, place the live stitches on a spare needle, and then repeat for the second edging (followed immediately by the body). At the end, graft the stitches together.

This technique has three big advantages that I see at the moment: First, the edges of the rectangular stole match. Second, I get to use up all of that precious silk with no guesswork. Third, once you’re done with the first edging, a progress shot is really easy!

I’m a little stunned at how much more I like the lace when the points are pinned out vs. when it’s straight across the bottom. The points add such a grace to the piece that’s not evident when it’s just hanging from the needle. One thing this picture doesn’t show, though, is the way the yarn is knitting up. I was a little unsure about this first installment of Sundara’s club–the color (“copper over bamboo”) seemed too bright, too pink, not subtle enough. Something was off about it, wound into a ball.

It knits up much more nicely than the ball might indicate. The sheen is incredible, and when the yarn has a little bit of room around it in the lace, I see less fuschia and more of the subtle bits of “bamboo” peeking through. There’s depth without streaking, delicacy, shine. I just can’t wait to wear it. I can’t wait to pick it up again after my current deadline wip is finished.

So what’s the secret knitting, then? A birthday sweater for one of our most special friends who is turning 2. I’ll talk about it more next week after the reveal, but details are in ravelry and here’s a sneak peek:

And finally, here’s a knits-in-action shot for you. You’ll have to excuse the glazed, slack-jawed, post-nap expression! I woke up from my nap with Jacob the other day and NEEDED POPCORN. So I threw on my new favorite maternity sweater and stumbled downstairs like a zombie.

As it turns out, the shaped v-neck sweater I knit myself a little over a year ago can accommodate a belly, too.

Of course I ripped it out. I just wouldn’t be me, if I hadn’t. I would have finished the sweater, and hated it every time Jacob wore it. And that’s no way to feel about a hand-knit. So all’s well that ends well, I’m happy with my decision, etc. I’m not as happy with my progress since then…

Neither am I particularly happy with my progress on the Cleopatra Wrap.

(I wound the silk lace with my ball winder and swift, very carefully and slowly, and while I will never get back that rather painful hour of my life, neither will I lose untold more hours weeping untangling the stuff because it flew off of my equipment. It’s probably a good trade.)

Instead of, oh, I don’t know, knitting, I spent the week losing myself in wonderful cheesy escapist fantasy books and David McCullough’s “Truman”. I didn’t knit at all on Tuesday, and got through mere rows the rest of the week. It felt good, though. I just hope I can keep myself from rummaging through the bookshelf long enough to finish something, this time.