I almost can't believe it...

I almost can't believe this project is done! Done done done! No longer a WIP! No longer on the sticks! Over! Finished! Done!

And it only took me almost 3 years ... but I can't wait to see the look on mum's face when I finally give it to her this weekend! I think she's probably given up on it ever being done.

And I got a medal for it in the Ravelympics! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It's amazing how you can get 25% of a shawl done in just 2 weeks if you really set your mind to it.

Details

Pattern: The very descriptively named Alpine Knit Scarf with Double Rose Leaf Centre Pattern and Diamond Border (!!) (otherwise known by me as the Alpine Lace Shawl!) by Jane Sowerby from Victorian Lace Today. I chose this pattern for a couple of reasons - it's a stole, so more wearable, the border is knitted at the same time as the centre, and it's just a lovely looking pattern. But on the downside, it's lace on both sides - which is one of the reasons it took me so long to do. Never underestimate the power of the purl rest row when choosing lace patterns!

The other thing to note with the pattern is that the centre pattern is an 8 row repeat, while the border is a 16 row repeat - so I did a cut and paste job on the charts - pasting two centre repeats in between the border repeat charts, which made it a lot easier to work from the charts.

Yarn: Filatura di Crosa Multicolour, in colour 3053, 6 x 50g balls. I chose this yarn with my mum, based on the colours really. But totally the wrong yarn for this pattern (or for lace really) - it's a 60% mohair/40% acrylic blend - which meant it didn't block out the same way as a 100% natural fibre yarn would have (I ended up adding a bit of length by adding 4 extra centre repeats). The pre-block measurements were 160cm/63" x 56cm/22", while after blocking it ended up 173cm/68" x 63cm/25".

And it was next to impossible to frog and even tinking was hard. Which means I fudged a bunch of mistakes in the shawl, moreso at the beginning though. Another contributing factor to the length of time to knit!

On the upside, mohair hides a lot of sins! And I reckon my ends will never come out, because the yarn is so sticky!

Sticks: KnitPicks Options 4.5mm 80cm circular. Another newbie to lace (at the time) mistake - needles too small for yarn. Or really, yarn to heavy for needles! The yarn is really an 8ply/DK weight, so I should have used at least 5mm or 5.5mm sticks - although this would have made the shawl tooooo wide. Anyway, have learnt my lesson about yarn choice from this project!

Time: April 2007 - 28 February 2010. Oh my!

What I learnt: As this was my first big lace project, I made a lot of mistakes - yarn choice, pattern choice, needle choice. But somehow it all came together in the end, and I really am pleased with this (not just that it's done either!).

My, doesn't two weeks fly by!

Sorry for the blog silence over the last two weeks. I have an excuse for one week at least ... last week husby and I spent a lot of time lying around this:

And walking along this:

Plus a whole lot of eating out and watching the Olympics and knitting (well, I was knitting, husby clearly was not!)

And this picture tells a very happy story:

Yep, it's a bunch of stitch markers. What story do these tell? The story of an almost 3 year old wip, now FINISHED! FINISHED! FINISHED! Which means only one thing: GOLD, GOLD, GOLD FOR AUSTRALIA! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(Don't worry, I'll reveal all shortly!)

Ravelympics 2010

In a fit of joining-in-ness, I agreed a few months ago to join the Ravelympics for the upcoming winter Olympics, and also agreed to co-captain a team, from the Over The Fence group, TeamDoingABradbury.

(For those of you who don't know, Stephen Bradbury was the first Australian to win a gold medal at any winter Olympics, in the 2002 Games short track speed skating (1000m). He won after all of the competitors in the final crashed out on the last corner. Figuring he couldn't win, his strategy going into the final was basically to sit at the back and hope that maybe a couple of the others would fall. I don't think he expected they all would!! So now in Australia anyone who takes this approach is known as "doing a Bradbury"! Check out the video of the race here.)

So there are about 35 events, and I'm entering a couple:

WIP Dancing - in an aim to finally finish, in one fell swoop, my Alpine Lace Shawl. I reckon I've got 78% done now, so I think I can do it...

Stash Compulsory Dance and Junior Olympics - I'm going to use this 1lb (453g) CONE of Peaches n Cream to make some blurp cloths for Teddy from the first Mason Dixon book. I know blurp cloths are hardly challenging knitting, but since I'm going to be at the beach for the second week of the Olympics, I figure they'll be good beach/poolside knitting. I had only planned to do one, but I might even get 2 or 3 done, which would be pretty cool.

Cast-on time for us Aussies on Eastern Standard Time is 1pm tomorrow (Saturday 13th). Plenty of time to join in if you haven't already signed up!

A commitment

Sorry about the dearth of posts lately - my mum has been visiting the last two weeks and it was just a bit harder to take photos and write posts etc. Not that we were out and about a lot, I have to admit there was a lot of sitting around and knitting and me teasing her about knitting for other people instead of her next grandchild - not that it had any effect!



But even though she didn't mention it once while she was here, her visit did make me feel guilty that I STILL have not finished the lace shawl I started for her in April 2007 (!!!). The last time I knit on it was April this year! Oh dear! So I pulled it out on Sunday after she'd gone home and realised I'm just over half way done (a bit more than I thought - hurrah!).

(sorry about the crappy photo - it's too long to fit anywhere to photograph easily!)

I know I can't get it finished by Christmas, but her birthday is in early April, so I figure I've got 5 months (including November!) to finish it - that's 10% per month, or 40 rows - totally do-able, right?

In fact, since Sunday, I've done two repeats - that's 16 rows - only 24 more to go until the end of November! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Was it a long lacy summer?

Lucky I've got this blog, or else I'd have thought I did next to no lace knitting this summer, in Bells' unofficial long lacy summer KAL. But looking back the other day, I realised that even though I made absolutely no start on this grand plan, I did actually knit (or crochet) a lot of lace. Just not with laceweight yarn!


It started with this:

Then there was this:

And this:
And this:

This:
AND this:
(see, I told you I was on an orange kick!

The thing that strikes me as I look back on these projects (most of which I have to admit were not chosen with the Long Lacy Summer in mind) is that how versatile lace knitting really is. It's not just gorgeous airy shawls in fine yarns, but is very adaptable to different weights of yarns and different items, like socks, bags and garments. Without even really meaning to, what a lovely lacy time I had!

Miss F's Fabulous Forties

Since the gift has now been gifted, I can tell you all about Miss F's Fabulous Forties scarf.

I've gotten into the habit of knitting gifts for a bunch of friends turning 40 and at the start of October I remembered that Miss F was one of the soon-to-be-4o crowd. Gah! Since her birthday is this week (but her party was yesterday) I had to get a move on! I thought a lace scarf would be do-able in a month (and fits in with the Long Lacy Summer) and since Miss F is a bit sensitive to wool, I decided on lovely Handmaiden Seasilk. And when I found a colour called Topaz, which just happens to be the birthstone for November, I figured it was perfect!

Details

Pattern: Andrea Reversible Lace Scarf - from the Knitting Pattern a Day calendar for 2008 (one of the few decent patterns!!). I made the scarf 3 pattern repeats wide, plus 6 garter stitches on either side - so 48 stitches all up.

Yarn: Handmaiden Seasilk - 1 x 100g skein in Topaz

Sticks: 3.5mm KnitPicks Harmony Options

Time: October 8 2008 - November 5 2008 - pretty good effort I thought!

What I learnt: Seasilk grows a lot on blocking! Pre-blocked, the scarf was 143cm/56" long by 14cm/5.5" wide. Post-blocking it was 175.5cm/69" by 22cm/8.75". Wow! I did block it pretty severely but I'm so pleased with how it turned out.

And I think Miss F is too!

Too many choices!

Oh woe is me, life is hard - I can't decide which pattern to make using this most divine silk yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts! It is black based, with shades of blue, green and purple.

Please can you help me? It has 1125 yards, and I'd really like to use as much of it as possible. I think I'd prefer a rectangular stole and I'd like a pattern that isn't too easy (so not the same short repeat for the whole thing) but also not too hard (eg a purl "rest row" would be great!).

I've come up with these options (some are Rav links, sorry!) - what do you think?

Madli's Shawl (IK Summer 2004) - but probably without the nupps. I particularly like this pattern as it doesn't have a knitted on edge.

The (very similar to Madli's shawl) Large Rectangle in leaf and trellis pattern from Victorian Lace Today (p.54) - the pattern calls for 1200yds but I could do a smaller edging perhaps?

Simurgh by Anne Hanson - I think this is the favourite...It's suitably gothic for this yarn!

The lovely Myrtle Leaf Shawl, also from VLT (p.142) - the downside to this one is that it is patterned on the purl rows too.

Celtic Knot stole - I'm quite taken with this one but wonder if the celtic lace pattern would work with the yarn. Also, I'm not entirely sure I've got enough yarn for this pattern, although I could probably modify it a bit.

Moon Dance - I like this one but worry I might get sick of the pattern after a while.

What do you think? While I'm leaning towards Simurgh, I'd really appreciate your views - and I've got more laceweight yarn (heh), so I can definitely make the runners up at another time!