Becky's Knitting

Back in March, one of the ladies in my LSSK group issued us a challenge:

"You know you have some yarn in your stash that's more special than the rest.  It's more expensive, or prettier, or has some SOMETHING to it that sets it above the rest.  You look at it and pet it regularly, then put it back on the shelf because you haven't decided yet what it's going to be.  Well, it's time to commit, my sistahs!  Get out your patterns, get your mouse to clicking...FIND the right pattern for that yarn.  If you're like me, not only do you have the yarn, but you've even got the pattern picked out too.  But for some reason, you haven't knitted that scrumptous stuff up yet!  Maybe you think that as long as it's still in skeins, it's "safe" and nothing bad can happen to it.  While that's true, you're still not enjoying that yarn to it's fullest potential either!  You know you'll enjoy knitting with it and you'll especially enjoy WEARING IT!!!  So, who's up for this challenge?  You know the yarn I'm talking about." 

Well I knew exactly what yarn she was talking about.  It was the Brooks Farm Duet yarn I picked up on sale at their booth at the Houston Knit at Night Conference I went to last August.  You can see it pictured at the bottom of this post.  And here's what is has become:

Just a few years later than everyone else, I have made a Clapotis.  I used almost every last ounce of the single skein of yarn I purchased - much cheaper than the 3-4 skeins of Lorna's Laces Lion & Lamb that the pattern calls for. 

It still needs to be blocked, but who knows when I will get around to that since it will not be appropriate weather to wear this for at least four months, so I figured I'd go ahead and share it now.

Project Specs:
Pattern: Clapotis
Yarn: Brooks Farm Duet
Needle: Addi Turbo 8 or 9's?
For: me
Started: March 2007
Finished: June 2007

Project Mods:  After reviewing Amy's Clapotis notes and suggestions, I chose to k tbl before and after the dropped stitch on the knit side and p tbl before and after the dropped stitch on the purl side.  I also didn't do quite as many increase rows in order to ensure that I had enough yarn.  And before starting the straight section, I weighed how much yarn I had used to make sure I reserved enough to do the decrease rows at the end, so I just knit the straight section until I only had that amount left.

Thoughts: this was a fun knit.  Dropping down the stitches was really pretty cool.  It was also excellent law school knitting as it was pretty mindless.  And once again I really liked the Brooks Farm yarn.  I'm gonna have to pick out some more project to use their yarn with as it is quite enjoyable and the colors are great. 

Posted by Becky at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I was in Minnesota a few weeks ago for a wedding, so I couldn't pass up the chance to visit some yarn stores since the Twin Cities have so many!  I emailed Shelly who recommended a few stores I haven't visited.  I made it to The Yarnery in St. Paul on Shelly's recommendation and came away with an amazingly soft skein of Malabrigo laceweight in a softly variegated heathery purple.  When I got home, I wanted to cast on immediately, but what to make?  I flipped through my stash of magazines and came across the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits Fall 2006 which only requires 437 yards of laceweight.  I was planning to do a scarf, but I really liked the pattern and thought it would go really well with the yarn.  I'm thinking this will be something nice to wrap around my shoulders when it's cold in the office, and I think it may still be small enough to wear as a scarf.  Here's my progress so far:

I love this yarn!!!!  It is sooooo soft!  And I really like the subtle variegation of the colors.  It doesn't take away from the lace pattern at all, but it does give it a little more depth than a solid yarn. 

I'm also trying out the Lantern Moon circulars for the first time.  So far so good - they're not super pointy and I don't think I would like them for more complicated lace that involved k3tog's or anything, but for this simple patter that is only k2tog and ssk's, the tips are pointy enough.  I have occasionally had trouble getting the laceweight yarn to slide over the metal joins, and I worry that will become more of a problem as the piece gets larger and has to move over the joins more.  Who knows, maybe I'll have to pick up some of the Addi Lace needles if these don't work :-)

Posted by Becky at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)