Sunday, November 2, 2008

Lace and I...

Now I've been Knitting for several years now, officially I learned at the age of 6 or so but I can't say I had much patience for it. I never however learned to read patterns, I go with the fly-by-the-seat- of-your-pants theory.

But one night I picked up a knitting magazine, and what did it have, but the most beautiful lace I think I've ever seen! Here came the sadness, I couldn't make heads nor tales of the pattern. Several trips to Craft Night at Fancy Tiger solved that... not to mention lots of patience on the behalf of all the knowledgeable knitters in the crew I figured it out.

Still not satisfied (I am a sucker for punishment) I decided I wanted a triangle shawl, not a rectangle. So began the task of changing the pattern to make that work...

Here it is, still not done but nearly there. The yarn is super cool, stripes like a Noro yarn, but in truth it's a wool/synthetic blend from Joanns... It was a gift from last Christmas so I'm trying to finish up by this Christmas. A gift to myself!

Here's the hip tip out of all of this - To make reading the stupid little scratch marks in tiny squares more manageable. First I highlighted alternating lines in a rainbow of colors, helps to keep on the same line. Then I took it to the copyshop and had it blown up and laminated. Now my old-lady eyes can follow it easily, and see the paper clips? I use those to mark which line I'm on and where I'm increasing. So even when I set it down for a week I can tell where I left off.
I can't be the first to figure this out, but I highly recommend it! The pattern is copyright of the magazine blah blah blah...don't sue me.

I have plans for matching cuffs with some kind of cable... I may even use a pattern ^.^

1 comment:

missknits said...

i dont use patterns either! i like to just create as i go! but lately i have seen some i am thinking about trying!

i loved the colors you used together by the way! looks lovely!