July 31, 2004
Calm and easy knitting
I'm truckin' right along on the body of my Ljace Kofta. The eyelet pattern has a nice rhythm. Only two rows out of every six are "pay attention" rows, and that seems to be a nice ratio. Could be that I'm in a rather "mindless" knitting mode!
Neither of these photos is great, and neither is quite the right color (the second photo is "truer" than the first). I'm not sure why the color differs so much. Sometimes my digital photos leave something to be desired. Anyway, this is a view of the body of the sweater to date. I have about 16" total at this point. The pattern has you knit 16.5 inches after the hem before starting the lace yoke, and the hem is nearly 2 inches, so I have a few inches to go.
This photo is a little closer view of the fabric. I'm liking the drape and feel of this fabric very much. I'm planning to wear this over a black turtleneck for the fall and winter, and it seems like it will be cozy (but hopefully not too hot).
I want to add short row bust darts to my sweater, so I've calculated that. I've also realized that my gauge on the lace portions of my swatch is significantly more rows/inch than the pattern gauge calls for (8.5 rows/inch as opposed to 7 rows/inch). Thus I need about 111 rows in the lace yoke as opposed to the 92 that are charted in the pattern. Sigh.
My row gauge in the body of the sweater was just fine, but it's the row gauge in the lace yoke that really matters in this pattern. So I have some adjusting to do. I'm planning to get through the short rows first, and then decide what to do next. But I have the short rows charted (I'll post the chart when I've knit it and am confident it was right), and I think I know what I'm going to add to the yoke. I also plan to add an angled decrease section at the armholes rather than a completely square armhole (more on that later). At the size I'm making (60" circumference), to follow the pattern I'd end up with an 11" armhole on each side and I think that's just too abrupt. I don't much like the way a square armhole hits across my bust (I confirmed this when I knit my Braids cardigan with a similar armhole shaping). But this is fixable.
It feels good to be knitting a sweater for myself again. It had been too long. And thanks again to Joan for such a well-designed pattern. I'm changing this and that, but it's great to have such a really well-thought out starting point.
July 23, 2004
Mondo Swatch-arino
I've just started Joan Schrouder's "Ljace Kofta" from A Gathering of Lace. The book is from XRX, Inc., and a picture of the sweater can be seen here. (Thanks, Julie!)
Last Sunday night I was in a swatching mood, and managed to make a swatch with an entire ball of yarn! I've not done that before, but it was actually rather fun.
(Click photo for larger resolution pop-up)
The swatch measures 12 X 10 inches (and yes, there's rather a glaring error in the lace! Hey, it's just a swatch.) I'm using Cascade's "Key Largo" which is 65% pima cotton, and 35% alpaca. Not a lot of elasticity, but the fabric is feeling nice. I am getting very close to the stated gauge with the stated needles. That doesn't happen terribly often for me, especially with an entirely different yarn. I washed my swatch and dried flat, happily fondled the resulting fabric, re-checked my gauge, and cast on for my sweater. Feels good.
It's not my shawl (yet), but it is lace!