Sunday, October 12, 2008

It's a Wrap


Or it will be, anyway. I finished one end of the cotton lace stole (wrap/table runner/whatever). Unstretched, it's about 16 1/2" wide and 22" long, and it'll block out a good 4-5" wider. Fabric knitted from this soft cotton yarn shrinks lengthwise by about 20% with washing (and I'll have to boil it to bring out the natural green color), so I won't count on much added length with blocking. I put this hunk on a stitch holder, and cast on for the other end. When I finish the 3 lace sections, I'll knit a fairly simple, loooong lace section in the middle (a repeat that I can sort of memorize. I hope) and then graft the finished end to it. I'm going to want at least 72" in length, but it's going to be a bit of a guessing game as to how long to knit it before boiling. But Adventure is my middle name. You can look it up.


These lace motifs were my own design, by the way- I just noodled in the Counted Cross Stitch program that I use for Fair Isle designs, using symbols rather than colors. Simple lace is easy to design- just make sure that you have the same numbers of YO's as K2 togs (or SSKs), and 2 YO's for each SK2P or K3 tog (if you want to maintain the same number of stitches, that is. Which, for a rectangular wrap, is sort of the point). Now whether the new designs are pleasing to the eye is another thing altogether, but that's also why Adventure is my middle name. YCLIU.
And it's still all Karen's fault.

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