Knit & Knag Designs

I find that when I work on projects I tend to work on three or so in parallel.  And they often finish all around the same time.  True to form, I have finished several projects in the past few days, and I just don’t have enough space to block them.  One at a time, one at a time.

And then this phase of finishing projects is of course followed by a period of planning new ones and casting on like mad.  The last of the batch for the wips that are being finished is a lace shawl in Nimbus Cloud from Slackford Studio.  This one has actually been with me for a lot longer than usual.  You see, sometimes designs just flow, and the yarn knits up into something amazing right away.  And sometimes it doesn’t work that way.  I think I originally cast on with this yarn in September.  At the time I was planning on making a sister-shawl to my Eyjafjallajökull shawl, so I was calling it Katla for one of the smaller Icelandic volcanos.  The True Blood coloruway could have been lava streams, and I was envisioning the lava flowing down towards the edge of the shawl.  I knit a bit more than half the new design and decided I just didn’t like the way it turned out.  So I frogged.

Then I decided to change the theme entirely and started working on a Raspberry Patch.  Ripe raspberry vines peaking out through a diamond patterned fence.  Because the True Blood colourway could also be sun-ripened raspberries on a warm summer day.  I knit about three quarters of that design and…. well…. I’m picky.  I didn’t like it.  So I frogged.

And *then* I had a stroke of genius.  Or something.    In any case, I charted my new design, cast on for the third time on the very last day of November, and now I only have about 3 rows left to knit.  I like it.  Blocking should commence as soon as the current shawl being blocked is dry.

I also cast on for a square shawl using LouLou from Land O Lace.  Square shawls are fun to make, but I have to admit that I find the first few rows very fiddly.  Still, I’m past that now, and that means that I actually have a project that is at the beginning stages of the knitting again.  I expect I’ll start a couple more within a week, and then I’ll have another blocking extravaganza in January sometime.

LouLou is a laceweight yarn in alpaca/cashmere/silk blend, and the colour I’m using is a pale lilac called Royalton.  Coincidentally both LouLou and Nimbus Cloud are 70% alpaca, 10% cashmere, 20% silk, but of course the two yarns are different weights.  Nimbus Cloud is a fingering weight, and LouLou a 2/24 laceweight.  Both lovely yarns though – soft, and with a halo.