Sunday, June 03, 2007

Samper Stole (row 55 of border)





Still Knitting on the Sampler Stole. I'm up to row 55 of the border and there are 162 rows in all . I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but I find the odd dropped stitch from time to time even though I tug on my lace periodically as I knit to try to catch them early on. It happened on my WRS center and it happened with this one too. You can see it in the top shot at the bottom of the picture. It's the third diamond counting from left to right. I have picked it up and will just have to"tie" it in place and hide the ends. No way am I going to rip back to that point! Once again, not perfect but not too bad. Does anyone out there have any experience with trying to starch Shetland Lace? Sharon Miller had described doing it but if you store the lace, you have to wash it out and re-block it since you don't want the buggies to be attracted to the starch. As if the wool itself was not already an enticing little snack for moths. A word to the wise. If you Xerox /enlarge a chart from a book like I did, don't forget to check for color-coded changes in the chart symbol instructions. This pattern had several and I didn't transcribe them to my copy so I had to pick back a few rows when I realized that my stitch count was off. I should have looked more closely a the "legend" that explains the stitch symbols. In some rows, the symbol for Sl1,K2tog,psso was supposed to be K2tog at the beginning of the repeat so the stitch count would come out correctly. I guess knitting lace is always a learning experience :-) I added a shot of the un-pinned stole center so you can more easily see the color shifting of the yarn. What exactly is it about variegated yarn that has me hooked so bad? After all. Lace shows to better advantage when your eye is not distracted by shifting colors, or so it is commonly believed. Yet I still like those color changes. Guess only time will tell if I am disappointed in the results. Until then, I'm enjoying the knitting. Good Evening to all!