Nicholas’ fingerless gloves

fingerlessgloves 005

Originally uploaded by misssophieknits.

Say hello to my first FO ‘07!

It’s been quite a while since I started these fingerless gloves. I was inspired by fetching but wanted to knit something with at least half fingers. So I found this free Interweave Knits pattern. It’s written for a man’s medium or a woman’s large hand. I have very small hands, even for a woman, so i decided to use a less bulky yarn and smaller needles than what the pattern called for. It worked phantastically, they really fit like a glove I really like the pattern – it’s a mock-cable, which means that there are no real cables, just a slipped and pass-over stitch. There are also some yarn-overs required which gives them a bit of a lace-structure. Not very suitable for men, I think, but very suitable for me

Project Details:
Nicholas’ fingerless gloves, pattern: see above
yarn: ggh – merino soft, colour 14
needles: 3 mm double-pointed

I love Elann!

Today I got mail. Well, knowing that German Post doesn’t deliver on sundays, maybe it has been yesterday that the Elann-parcel arrived. Believe it or nor, it took the yarn only five days from Vancouver, Canada, to Hamburg, Germany! I somehow can’t believe it and it completely made my day.

The yarn, Peruvian Baby Silk, is a fingering weight, and at a first glance I’m tempted to say it’s too bulky for lace-knitting. But I saw brooklyntweeds version of the swallowtail-scarf (by the way: I love this blog!) and I loved it so much that I’ll simply knit and don’t worry about the result. This is really one thing I like about knitting-blogs: Every time you think about substituting a yarn or doing a modification of a pattern you can be pretty sure that somebody tried that before: Just type it into Google or Technorati and you’ll see the result. And if I find an interesting pattern in a magazine I will make sure that I have a look at the blogosphere first to find out how the pattern looks like if it is knitted by normal knitters like me and maybe with a cheaper yarn.

But back to the Baby Silk: It looks really nice, is very soft and has an unobtrusive silky sheen. The colour (parchment) is ab bit more like fawn or off-white than on the website but actually I do like it better than normal white. But I’ll be a good girl and finish another project first until I’ll start with the swallowtail.

I like the way my new attempt to the print of the wave has turned out and will post photos soon. This project stays here in Hamburg and is for the weekends. In Göttingen, where I’m from monday to friday, my bomber jacket waits for me. I’m halfway finished with the second sleeve and then there are only some small details left. It’s knitted with Rowan Denim, that will shrink a lot, so you have to machine-wash it first and then assemble the pieces. It really sounds like a challenge…

Professional lace yarn

I had a look a elann.com today and realized that they have some interesting bargains. I found what I suppose to be a „professional lace yarn“: Peruvian Baby Silk. I couldn’t resist and ordered 4 balls in white. They have really cheap shipping rates to Germany – uninsured airmail for those 4 balls is only 9 $. I’m not a big fan of uninsured shippings since I normally get nervous if the parcel hasn’t arrived after a „normal“ time (it’s said on their homepage that airmail takes normally about two weeks). By the way: After using PayPal I’ve been surprised about the very low exchange rate between Dollar and Euro (maybe a financial mathematician like me shouldn’t be surprised about such economical figures…).

I think I’ll use this for the Swallowtail Scarf. I’ve seen some very nice pictures of it among different knitting blogs and suppose it’s an interesting but not too difficult lace pattern with a very pleasing result.

As to my current project: Print of the wave. Don’t ask about it. I realized that I was riding a dead horse. Maybe gauge was ok with the merino but it simply wouldn’t work. It would never look good with that yarn. So I changed to something completely different: A somehow lighter-than-cobweb-weight I also bought at Wolle Halle. I use 2mm-Needles now and will post pictures later. I’ll have to test how the yarn reacts to (aggressive) blocking but this will take some time.

Print of the Wave – I

I’ve started with Eunny’s print of the wave stole. I use the double-threaded 100% Merino bought at Wolle Halle (see last post) und 3.5mm circulars.

Here’s the progress so far:

O.k., you can’t see that much. Blame it on my parents’ cell phone camera. Although it might look good to you I’m not completely happy about the project.

The pattern is absolutely wonderful! I think it is definitely one of the best lace patterns ever and my personal favourite. Most lace patterns are just an arrangement of tiny ornaments, like little leaves or circles, symmetrically repeated. In contrast, to me, this pattern really shows a kind of dynamic. Especially combined with the lovely edging. So I don’t worry about the pattern, but about my choice of yarn. I like the merino and it doesn’t seem to be a problem that the strands are not twined, but the yarn lacks a bit of „glamour“. You know what I mean? Maybe a silk blend would have been a better choice, something classic but yet a bit shiny. The second reason for me being a bit worried is the size after blocking. I’ve read somewhere on Eunny’s page that she’s only knitted it in cobweb weight while I’m doing it in laceweight und that it may turn out HUGE! And I’m not a huge person. But from my two problems this hopefully will be the smaller one since maybe I’ll just work a few rows less.