Thursday, September 6, 2007

Secret Swatch for Janet's Stole

OK...here's my second try on selecting a yarn and doing up a swatch for the SotS KAL. It's a sport-weight but it feels rather fine to my clumsy fingers - lol. It's quite soft though (as a 50% acrylic/50% merino wool) and knits up pretty nicely. The colorway is called "Marina", which should appeal to our noble leader; Nautical Knitter. I found some crystal cube beads today and am really excited that not only do they look just right with the yarn but that I learned how to add beads to my knitting!! Woohoo!! Oh...and that ugly biege string? That's a lifeline! I knew about them but had never used one. Well, today I did - twice. I laughed at myself as, after zoning out while watching the Great Blue Heron hunt the pond in the front yard...I realized I had knit straight across. And that's not all - I knit straight across 3 rows! (Boy howdy, I get an award for this one, don't I?)
I'm so ok with using this thicker yarn as the stole will be a gift to my dear friend; Janet. Now Janet knows she's a bigger girl so she won't mind too much my saying so here. And since she's a bit more "huggable" than me, the thicker yarn, bigger stitch pattern and larger size over-all should make it the perfect gift for her! The only thing is...I can't decide when I'll gift it to her. Perhaps I'll teach her about my tradition of "Just Because I Love You" Days.
AND...since all of this is going so well for me, I'm going to continue my search for the perfect yarn as fingering to make one for myself.

4 comments:

SYLVIE said...

That's a really nice shade of blue! I like the beads you've chosen.

I never knitted with lace yarn, but I'll give it a try. I'm still thinking about adding beads, never done that before either.

I won't tell your friend about the stole. :)

Anonymous said...

Great job! I like the one with the thinner yarn too. Just for fun, I would try a needle size larger for the larger yarn and see what happens. Lifelines are wonderful aren't they? Fair Winds

Vykky said...

Thanks Sylvie, I really like it too and it's a good color for Janet. I got lucky with the beads - they're just clear crystal cubes lined with silver so they show but aren't "obnoxious" - LOL! And I learned real quick to do my "in-between" row more loosely so as to have the slack needed to string the beads. But it was easy! Has your yarn come yet? I know I read on your blog that you do tatting so you know all about handling that "thread" they call lace-weight!

Vykky said...

Thanks so much DK! The color reminds me of the water in the little bay near my first Coast Guard assignment - the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay in the Northern Neck of Maryland. And once I learned (via the lifeline) to do my non-pattern row more loosely, it was so easy to add the beads! I am so proud - like a little kid...grin. I wanted to do it one size up but don't have needles in that size (knitting shopping!)I'm going to do one also in the lighter fingering (the perfect yarn hasn't found me yet) but I'm not quite ready for that thread you guys call lace-weight (scary stuff!). But at this rate of learning, after doing the KAL, I'm going to learn enough to do one in true lace-weight real soon!