The Knitting. The Things I have Learnt....

1  I should complete "serious" lace knitting on straight rather than circular needles:

Here is The Hanami Take Two Day Three.  I have completed one pattern repeat of the basket weave.  And a close up:

I am happy now with how it is knitting up.  I have gone down .5 mm to 3mm needles but the real difference is in the straight needles.  They provide rigidity to my knitting which is desperately needed.  When I knit lace I knit pretending to not be a mollyduker - ie as a right hander (the pattern row anyway, on the "return" row, I just turn around and knit left-handed - I'm such a cheat).  This right handed knitting means that I throw, drop and grab needles and yarn in a very ungainly, painfully slow way.  It also means that I can't keep even tension on circular needles.  Change needles and problem fixed - yah!!

2  Lace isn't always stretchy.

These Feather and Fan socks don't fit me or The Girl :(  The pattern is very unstretchy and this surprised me.  I am hoping they will block a little wider and I will then send to my MIL whose feet are narrower than mine or The Girl's - here's hoping.

3  I don't like the Dutch heel.  Although it is a pretty to look at heel, it is very narrow - see 2 above.  I won't be using it again and will substitute my normal short row heel I think.

4  STR yarn is truly beautiful.

This is STR's Bella Coola and the pattern is Embossed Leaves from Interweave's Favorite Socks.  The pattern is lovely as well and the leaves are actually on show much more than this photo would have you believe.

5  Sometimes I don't know my own stash.

I have been happily quoting this yarn as coming from Sundara and being her Lenten Rose Colourway.  Actually, this is STR Monsoon colourway.  I realised this last week when I thought I had lost my Monsoon yarn and couldn't identify the other sock yarn I had in my "soon to be used stash" - duh!!!  The unidentified and unused sock yarn was, of course, Lenten Rose.  These socks also reinforce Number 4 above as do the Feather and Fans.

6  Sometimes knitting can be painful.

All my sock knitting, especially the lace, has literally cracked the back of my finger in three places.  Do you know how painful revisiting this injury with knitting needles can be....!!!

7  Photographing fingers while holding the camera is hard.

Enough for now....

Comments

[Jenny Girl]

Noticed you are Lizzy Bennet and just had to stop and read. All of your socks are lovely. I have discovered lace yet, but being a fearless knitter in 2008, I plan to try.

[Lynne]

Yep, we live and learn - that's why it's called the school of hard knocks [or cracked fingers]. Hope you heal quickly.

According to Carol Rasmussen Noble who wrote Lavish Lace circulars "make it difficult to maintain proper tension since the needle points and...connector have different circumferences." I just read that last night - and then read your blog entry today!

Looking forward to seeing the progress of Hanami. Keep up the great work