Irresistable

With some wonderful hand-dyed yarn I purchased a while back, I decided to try out the Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style. Here is an image of a sort of swatch in progress. Of course it's really not a swatch, it's the beginning. Who cares! I'm going to block the living daylights out of it anyway. Lace totally agrees with my knitting style -- intricate in thought and execution, yet without backtracking in preparation.



I have an opinion question: I will soon be knitting 2 lace scarves, one in a variegated and one in a solid yarn. Variegated yarns tend to give me trouble when choosing a pattern. I'm not sure whether to choose a small-scale pattern or a larger one. Any opinions?


Here's an opinion of mine. While I love the efficiency of a swift and ball winder, I far more enjoy the aesthetics of a hand-wound center-pull ball of yarn. Compare below:



For me, hand-wound balls tend to fall apart less, particularly when thrown into a bag for storage, and just make me happy because they look so characteristic.

Comments

Sarah said…
I totally agree with you about the hand-wound balls of yarn - but then again I'm too cheap to buy a ball winder when I can do it myself, so it's all I've ever known. Hey, what happened to that white lace you were knitting?
8:00 PM
reluctantMANGO said…
Lovely lace! I'm taking to it as well these days, and I've found that larger scale patterns are better for variegated yarns... smaller scale patterns tend to get lost, IMHO. That said, I find myself with mostly variegated yarn, and lots of textured patterns I'd like to knit. What's a girl go do?
12:40 PM
Anonymous said…
That looks purty...I have yarn to make that shawl...i guess I should start it at some point...
4:04 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introducing Escargot

Image
Escargot It was June 2010 and Kel, Danielle, and I were flying down the highway coming back to Alexandria from TNNA (the yarn industry trade show) in Columbus, Ohio. Danielle may or may not have been pushing the speed limit just a smidgen, and Kel may or may not have been clinging to the Mini's door in abject terror. There was a lot of chatter and planning, interspersed with laughter and highway-induced exasperation. I was taking notes as we planned the next year in yarn for fibre space ... and I was doodling. One of the doodles turned into the Hatskarfenmitten . The other doodle became Escargot . But it took a while. Things changed and we moved to California, but I couldn't get the idea of a funky, asymmetrical, spiral-enhanced cloche out of my head. This summer, I bumped into Amy Singer, the editor of Knitty , at a couple of yarn festivals, and told her I had a really cool hat idea. She said, "send it in." Pretending we are waiting for the train. With r...
Read more

"Knitting is a stupid hobby"

"Knitting is a stupid hobby." Those few words, spoken by the other member of my household, nearly drove me to inarticulate rage last night. We had sat down to dinner - enchiladas, if you want to know - and I was in the midst of talking about the new 25th Anniversary Vogue Knitting magazine. I had wanted to share it, show how it was put together, and figured we could have a laugh at the preponderance of advertising and bizarre design that filled its pages. Alas, this was not to be so. Not only was I interrupted with a complete non sequitur on his part, showing me a different magazine from another genre (hello, can you sit down and listen for a minute? you're not the only one here with interests or opinions), but the reaction I got was totally unexpected. I was shaking my head at the latest Maie Landra-Koigu design (a suit set with short tuxedo pants, modular construction to the tune of 55 skeins of KPPPM and sequins, sequins for crying out loud), hoping to get some a...
Read more

Unraveling

Tonight, I sat down to knit on a sock - it doesn't matter which one - only to discover that several inches back, I'd made a mistake serious enough to warrant ripping it out. I like my pairs of socks to match one another as precisely as possible, so out it went. Two steps forward, one step back, and suddenly I'm in a place where I can start moving forward again, more perfectly. That is kind of how life is these days, both with knitting and, well, life. I think I've gotten myself somewhere only to stop, take a step back, and start again. Things aren't working out and I'm moving. In two weeks I'll be in another city, with other people. Closer to my family, closer to old friends for the holidays - but back to bad weather and, inevitably, unemployment. It's a gamble, but how can I not make the choice for happiness? For [astronomically] lower rent? For getting to see my parents and everyone else at Christmas? So I'm packing. Chicago or bust!
Read more