Blue Bamboo Baudelaires

Lace and cables and socks. I never thought I'd be one for "girly" socks, but I do seem to be hooked when it comes to handknit ones :)

Pattern: Baudelaire from Knitty
Yarn: Regia Bamboo Color - 1063
Amount: Quite possibly only one ball, I was working with what I had left over from my Swallowtail
Needles: US1

Comments: First, lets go for a closeup of the lace and cables, shall we?

*sigh* I am really mostly happy with how these turned out - they were wonderfully satisfying to knit - the lace pattern was an easy one (for me anyhow) to remember. Pattern modifications? Why yes, always, thank you very much - what fun is it if I'm going to knit if I can't add a little something of my own?

As far as modifications go, this one was fairly minor - I made the right and left socks mirror images of each other - meaning the cables are mirror each other when the socks are worn. I love them this way - I think if I had them marching in the same direction on both socks, I'd feel lopsided...but that's just me. The other change I made was to do the heel with a slip stitch for the flap. I had originally cast on for these socks in a size M and turned the heel complete with stockinette heel flaps, but found that my gauge must have been off as the socks were decidedly loose - after ripping them back, these finished ones are size S and they fit perfectly.

I was really pleased with how my heel came out - no holes, not even when I rejoined the instep :) I must be getting the hang of this sock knitting business. My only quibble with these socks is that I have a hard time getting them over my heels. This is apparently a fairly standard quibble with toe up socks, though I did not notice it with any of my previous pairs of socks (all knit toe up). It may just be this particular lace pattern combined with a certain eagerness to be done that may have had me starting the gusset a few rows earlier than may have been prudent...



...regardless, I think they are quite lovely, and I'm going to enjoy wearing them.

Swallowtail Shawl

The Swallow Tail Shawl, from the fall 2006 Interweave Knits is now complete :) It knit up super fast in just over a week's time. If you're wondering why it looks so large, it's because it is probably the same dimensions as "full sized" shawls, measuring about 68 inches across the top and 30 inches down to the point. No pattern modifications were done other than to use a different yarn (and of course larger needles).

Yarn: Regia Bamboo Color (1063)
Amount: Approximately two and a quarter balls.
Needles: US7

Comments: The pattern is a breeze to follow, and I found I had it memorized fairly quickly - I wound up not placing stitch markers between the pattern repeats mostly because I got tired of having to shift them around - I've apparently come a long way in my knitting as I find it much easier to "read" my knitting, even in lace form, and I was able to correct mistakes often within a couple of rows without having to tink or rip back - the most common mistakes I made were omitting a yarn over or forgetting to pass the slipped stitch over.

As the case seems to be with all lace projects, the magic is indeed in the blocking. The shawl was so squinched up (as lace often is) before blocking, I was amazed at how large it wound up blocking to. Before heading into the Nupps and the Lily of the Valley sections, I was trying to decide if extra budding lace was required - thank goodness I decided not :)


Speaking of Nupps, I've decided that I love love them. A pain to execute, but they sure give the shawl that extra bit of interest. I knitted my shawl using Denise interchangeable needles - the points on the needles aren't the pointiest, but I managed to do all my nupping without having to resort to slipping stitches hither and yon onto other needles or clear all the way back to the cable - the trick, I think, was to make sure to form the nupp loosely so that on the purl row it wasn't too difficult to capture all five stitches for the purl-5-together. I will admit to breathing a huge sigh of relief once the nupping was done and I was able to move onto the border.


Unfortunately I couldn't get a good shot of the full shawl indicating what the yarn looks like - photographing shawls prove to be much more difficult than I anticipated! Outdoors, things were lit very brightly, yet harshly and with too much contrast - so I resorted to a small indoor shot near a window of the shawl folded up.