KnitMe

Jade FO; Sailor's Collar

Here is my rendition of (now I will tell what it is) the 'Jade' shawl from Sharon Miller's 'Simply Stunning' collection.

It calls for Kid Silk Haze and I do not enjoy knitting with or wearing mohair, so I turned to the stash and pulled out this fingering weight cashmere/merino in a purple/white twist (this stuff was floating around a lot a year or two ago, I bought this from a Knitswapper and I have another batch I bought on eBay in a different color). Unfortunately you can't really see the twist effect in the photos, it just looks like a purple shawl. In person it is a bit more interesting.

It was a very simple lace pattern to knit, so it doesn't clash with the slightly offbeat yarn. Although the pattern is marked 'Experienced', I would definitely recommend this to someone who wants to try a first lace project.

I lengthened it by adding one more set of diamonds at the top of the shawl.

I've tried several new things this week, learned from my very smart online knitting friends. On this shawl, I used a lace bindoff I learned from Elka: K1, slip the sttich back to the left needle and knit it together with the next stitch, and repeat till you are done. It made a very stretchy edge that also had a nice finished look to it, like a 2 stitch I-cord. Thanks Elka!

This shawl only took me from April 1st to April 27th to knit, and I used just under 6 ounces of the yarn, something less than 800 yards.

Last night, Sailor's Rib got its neckband finished.

I modified the neckline slightly because I didn't want to use a button-over shoulder - so I just widened the neck opening by putting more stitches on hold at the center front. I think it will block out to be fine, but it won't let any drafts in, that's for sure! I chose to make a fold-and-sew neckband for the nicely finished look, since this is going to be a gift.

When I was discussing this with Vanessa, she said that she did the same kind of neckband on a gansey she designed for her husband, and instead of binding off and sewing, she "sort of kitchenered" the live stitches down to the row where she did the picking up. Wow, I thought, what a brilliant idea, I can just see how that would work. So, that's what I did. Yarn through the first stitch as to purl, leave on needle; catch to the appropriate place on the body; yarn through the first stitch as to knit, and slip; repeat. It was time-consuming with about 140 stitches, and I'm sure I didn't do it as perfectly as Vanessa did, but what a nice finished look you get on the inside, and it's totally elastic because NO BOUND OFF EDGE!!

I hope I can bring you a photo of the famous gansey next week with the MS&W Soiree Report.

Whew! Done with something! I think my next new thing will be the Wool Peddler's shawl from Folk Shawls, with some Noro Cash Iroha I bought on sale. A good bit of the fun of finishing something is feeling entitled to start something else, isn't it?

Posted by Prudence at April 29, 2004 06:12 AM