Thursday, July 16, 2009

The New Projects


I've been puttering away on a couple of cute summer projects. One of them is a pullover from Verena Knitting magazine (ravelry) in aran-weight cotton which I got with a birthday gift certificate in May (thanks to my sisters.) The yarn is fat and soft and squishy -- it really fulfills the promise of its name: Cloud Cotton. Of course knitting with it is much faster than knitting with the DK, sock, or laceweight that I've been using in my other projects. I'm already finished the back of this pullover. Don't get your hopes up for a really quick finish, though -- I still have the front and two long sleeves to go.


In the meantime, I've been using that gorgeous alpaca laceweight yarn I got at the Fiber Festival to make a little shrug (ravelry) that I fell in love with. Mind you, I didn't fall in love with the lace pattern used in the design, so I spent a day or two swatching different patterns with different needles until I found something I liked. This is an Estonian star pattern (which I borrowed from Knitty's Laminaria shawl pattern) done on a huge needle (US9, or 5.5mm.) It has an interesting three-dimensional texture right now, and doesn't look like much, but as is the case with lace, it should open up and flatten out and show its beauty with a stern blocking once this piece is knit. Then comes the real fun -- the seaming, the peplum, the lace edging, the showing-off.

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