Sunday, May 27, 2007

Unfold your feathers!

I've been working on a secret "secret" project which I finished this week and maybe I'll blog about that later. In the meantime, I've cast on a lace project. I'm thinking that the allure of having these beauties in my stash ready to cast on may spur me on to finish this lace cardigan.

Can you see the peacock feathers in the lace or will you have to wait for the magic of blocking?

This lace seems to go both fast and slow. This is a eight-row pattern, but really it's a four-row pattern that repeats with the second four rows starting from a different point. Within the true four-row pattern only one row creates the lace--the other three are basically stockinette. Gotta love it! The nice tourist on the subway was amazed that I could knit lace without looking at what I was knitting and I was too uppity to do anything else but smile without mentioning that I was on a plain ole purl row. I'm not a nice girl...

What also adds to the slow-fast condundrum is that the directions have me knitting the fronts and the backs of the cardigan all at once with a split for armholes, etc. to happen later on. So it's a million stitches, but I'll have the whole body done together--like two socks at one time! On the other hand, this is 100% mercerized cotton--shiny, hardy, lovely, but COTTON. Not that much of a joy to knit.

4 comments:

Knitting Ewe said...

The lace looks great! I want you to hurry too, I cannot wait to see what pattern you choose for that beautiful pastel yarn, and how it knits up!

Annie said...

i used mercerized cotton once. it was actually addictive and i was making a lacy top for myself and it was pretty and kinda sexy. then i got pregnant. and that's my mercerized cotton story,

i cant wait to see your finished sweater! Probably ready in a few more hours, eh? ;-)

HPNY KNITS said...

i like the pattern. knitting all at once is great when you are done you are done!
:-)

misplacedpom said...

I love the colour you chose. "Chose", that looks funny. Is it spelt like that, is it a real word? Man the coffee I just drank has gone right to me head. Wheeeeeeeee!