Odessa

My first finished object of the blog! I went to Chicago over the weekend, and I needed a sleek black cap to wear in the evening. I grabbed some yarn from the stash and knit up Odessa, sans beads. What a great pattern! Here's a photo from the back (might take me a while to get comfortable with showing photos of my face - is that silly?)

Pattern: Odessa by Grumperina
Yarn: Knitpicks Elegance, "coal", just over one ball
Modifications: no beading, started decreasing a bit early to compensate for the yarn's drape

The silk in the yarn makes for a slick and shiny fabric. But I think that for this pattern I might have preferred a yarn with more body and bounce.

Wedding Shawl

I’m getting married in August, on a hilltop in Vermont. Naturally, I want to knit a shawl (probably to keep my shoulders warm in the cool evening, but perhaps to wear during the afternoon ceremony in case of a breeze).

I thought that I'd figured it all out. I was going to wear this dress:


And in keeping with its aesthetic, I wanted a shawl that would float around my shoulders like a cloud. Something ethereal but with a slight edge. I started “River” in kid silk haze night, which has a thread of silver running through it.


The problem? I decided to go with a different dress! One that's more mountaintop appropriate. Not only does the color not match (this new one is more ivory than white), but the fabric is heavier, the shape has strong, clean angles (not soft and swishy), and the texture is like grosgrain ribbon.


I started looking at triangular shawls to accent the triangles at the bust, but my sister informed me that non-knitters might think it dowdy. So I've decided to do a rectangular stole with a obvious lengthwise pattern, which would pick up the horizontal lines of the dress fabric. I think I've narrowed it down to these three:
1. Eunny's Print O' The Wave Stole
2. Trellis Lace Stole, from Vogue Knitting Int'l Holiday 2003
3. Feather and Fan Stole (this photo is from patternworks, but I'd just make it up)



Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with these patterns? I'm leaning towards Eunny's gorgeous and intruiging stole (maybe without the center grafts, since the guests will be looking at my back during the ceremony). But other friends have urged me to try the trellis lace stole, with its cleaner geometry.

And for yarn? My favorite fiber is alpaca, so I was thinking of Misti Alpaca Laceweight. But am also considering something with a bit of silk to add shine, perhaps Zephyr wool-silk. (Given my history of abandoning lace projects, I initially wanted to try something in a fingering weight. But I swatched up the print o' the wave pattern in some baby cashmerino and baby ull, and found it terribly inelegant.) Does anyone have experience with these yarns? Or can you suggest another alpaca laceweight?

A Gathering of (Unfinished) Lace

One of my goals for this year, despite what I implied in my previous post, is to reduce the number of WIPs cluttering up my shelves. Most bothersome: stalled lace projects. I've had a habit of getting discouraged when I make a mistake, putting down the knitting, then never again picking it up. Currently I'm facing four such projects:

(clockwise from left)
1. Feather and fan scarf, Nandia cashmere laceweight in a rich wine color (I started this four years ago...)
2. Flared Lace Smokering, in handpaintedyarn.com's wool laceweight, "pagoda"
3. River, in Kidsilk Night, "starlight"
4. Harlot's Snowdrop Shawl, in knitpick's merino laceweight, "sunset." (Think I'll just frog this terrible one)

I need to figure out how to work through the discouragement. Especially since I have in mind a new, big, and important lace project: a wedding stole.

At least Leila's having fun with this!

Prerequisites

I think I'm ready to join the tribe of knitting bloggers. I've got down all the prerequisites:

1. A spunky kitty cat, who follows my knitting with great interest.

2. No qualms about starting new projects despite having many, many unfinished objects.

3. Bandwagon projects from Knitty - clapotis, honeymoon cami, shedir


4. Burgeoning yarn stashes that produce a mixture of guilt and exhilaration. They're separated - at my apartment, my fiance's house, and my parents' house - to hide the truth from others.


5. Pseudonym for my fiance. Meet "Mountain Man."

6. And a passion for knitting that is woefully misunderstood by my non-knitting friends...