Knitting In Public

I have joined so many lace KAL’s (see sidebar - I finally learned how to add buttons to my blog!), I must be nuts. On top of the incredible work schedule I have lately (keeping me from doing much knitting), lace is something that is not very portable, nor is it group-friendly.  These patterns have really been giving me a hard time. I haven’t frogged this much for as long as I can remember.  I do have some progress to show, even though I am far behind in the KAL’s:

Mystic Waters KAL. This is a triangle shaped shawl. The group is currently on clue 3, this is slightly more than half of clue 1. I’m using KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud in Tidepool Heather, with size 2 (3.0 mm) KnitPicks fixed circular needles.

Here’s a close up of the yarn - it seems kind of greenish when you look at it in the skein and wound into a cake, but when you look at the actual stitches, it is really several different colors blotched together. This seems such an appropriate color for a shawl named “Mystic Waters” and I’m loving it! The pattern is very pretty (I get to see the finished clues of others who are current in the KAL). Seeing the clues inspires me to work on it, but this will end up being for me so I’m afraid it’s going to go to the back burner for now.

This is the Secret of Chrysopolis:

I’m using KnitPicks Shadow in Vineyard color (deep purple), with size 2 (2.75 mm) KnitPicks fixed circular needles. This pattern was going so slowly. I have ripped more rows than I have knit. Finally, I have finished clue 1! (The KAL is officially over, clue 8 was posted last Friday.) The edging was the worst for frogging, but I also ended up changing the needle size as this was so big. I intend to give it to Jenny for Christmas, but it seems pretty likely it would be Christmas ‘08. (We only have 36 knitting days left for this year.)

I also decided to add beads to this pattern (although the designer did not include any):

The beads are darker, but they are not as obvious as they are in this photo. I also ended up changing from a round, ‘grape’ colored bead to these which are hex beads and are longer than the size 8 rounds. I changed because I lost the tube of grape beads! I had put in the first row of beads so I had to frog back and insert these other beads in order to keep going.

Last, but not least, is the Hanami stole for Anne. I decided to use the size 3 (3.25 mm) Addi Lace turbos, as it will result in a stole closer to the size of the original design which I think will be a better size for her. I’m adding more beads than called for in the original pattern, adding one to the center of each of the solid diamond shapes. In addition, I’ll add some random beads in the blossom section as well, following Angela’s bead placement.

This is about 1.5 repeats of the basketweave section, which calls for a total of 7 repeats. This will be the last I’ll show of this project until after Christmas….I don’t want to ruin the “surprise” of the gift!

Despite not having a lot of time to knit, I have actually managed to finish a few (non-lace) objects, but I’ll save them for another post. I’ll leave you with this teaser though, and see how many of you will know what it is! (Mary, Sue & Jean, this should be a no-brainer for you!)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Mystic Waters, Hanami, Lace, SOC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.