Look at someone else's pretty things!

I still don't have interesting knitting photos. Since the weather got colder, my hands have been terribly chapped and cracking. Knitting with Malabrigo Lace is difficult because it snags on my fingers and dries them out more. I've had to cut back on how long I knit each night and right now the finger my yarn passes over is a mess. Who knew knitting was a hazardous hobby?

I've been contemplating other artistic pursuits lately. I'm not stopping knitting, just adding other hobbies to my evenings and weekends. Liz has been a great inspiration and I have several mixed media paintings in my head, waiting to come out. I have some art supplies on order and they will hopefully be here by the weekend.

Other inspiring sites as of late:

The HeArt of Papercuts

It is absolutely amazing what this artist can do with paper and a blade. I am in awe and it's inspiring me to try some papercutting of my own. This is a papercut called "the Secret Anatomy of a Young Girl". The detail is astonishing and I see something new every time I look at it.



The Long Thread

There are so many arts and crafts here and she does a great montage of little finds from Etsy every week. I've added a large number of Etsy sellers to my favorites list, which is probably dangerous. She has good tutorials for crafts and lots of beautiful photos. Again, I'm inspired to create some projects of my own.

I'd like a sewing machine at some point. I'm glad I have some room to spread out and experiment with different kinds of art. It's all so interesting! I wish I had taken more art classes in the past, but there are options here. I've signed up for two classes this spring - one is art metal and jewelry and the other is metal filigree. I'll learn some new skills to use with beading and jewelry, and possibly other forms. The real temptation is the glass studio two blocks from my house. I could go nuts if I only had the funds!

Yes, I'm still knitting

I'm working on the sweater that will never end. It's my first adult sweater and I'm designing it myself. It's obvious it's my own design because I'm being a crazy person and knitting with Malabrigo Lace on US2 needles. Hence the reason it will never end. I'm about done with one sleeve right now. It doesn't look like much yet, but the swatching process was interesting.

I originally wanted to use a lace pattern called "Frost Flowers". When I started swatching it, I realized there are no resting rows. It has pattern stitches on the knit and purl side, although that's a bit of a misnomer. Both sides incorporate knits and purls and also some fun things like purl 2 together through the back loops. It's a pretty pattern, but since I knit Continental, changing rapidly from knit to purl is really frustrating. If you want to do me in, tie me to a chair and make me knit seed stitch or 1x1 rib. I'll spontaneously combust out of sheer frustration in no time. It's much more relaxing for me to knit a lace pattern with a lot of ssk's, k2tog's, yarnovers, etc than to knit a ribbed scarf.

So here's Frost Flowers on US5 needles.



Aside from the pattern stitches on every row, one repeat was huge and didn't really appeal to me. I wanted a finer textured lace and I wasn't willing to knit this specific pattern on smaller needles to get the effect I wanted.

Next I tried another lace stitch. It was nice, but not really speaking to me. I originally thought this could be a winner because I'm knitting my sweater sideways and this lace pattern looks good from all directions. This was also on US4's, which may be part of the problem.



I finally found what I was looking for. This is an old lace pattern called "Ostrich Plumes". It's similar to Feather and Fan, except the repeats are staggered so it swoops in and out instead of forming the deep waves of F&F. I knit it on US2's to get a nice fabric. When I knit lace, I like the stockinette portions to be solid and the yarnover portions to be open. Open lace knit on large needles doesn't appeal to me as much. Also, since this is a sweater, I'd like it to have some substance, even in laceweight yarn.



All of these swatches were knit with Malabrigo Lace in color "Olive". I love this yarn. It's so soft and delicious to work with and the subtle color changes keep my interest. They're not too obnoxious with the Ostrich Plumes lace pattern and I like the effect. I did have to frog back a big chunk when I realized this sweater was going to end up hanging to my knees. It was then that I discovered that Malabrigo Lace really binds to itself quickly. The last few rows were very difficult to frog because the fibers of neighboring stitches had begun to felt together, just from handling while I knitted. It's somewhat of a good thing since lace can snag easily and I don't want this sweater to fall apart. It may fuzz and lose some stitch definition, but I don't anticipate that it will be a big problem for me. This self-love on the part of the yarn also means I get more "yarn barf" than usual from my center pull balls. The yarn is felting inside the ball and I sometimes get a big clump as I pull out more yarn. It's easy enough to pull apart if I'm gentle, but it's something I haven't really seen with other wool yarns I've used. It's the nature of the beast since this is a spun single. If I had a yarn with multiple plies, a tighter twist or a different fiber, it wouldn't be this soft and it would behave totally differently.

All of the swatches were wet blocked and gently pinned to dry. The wet blocking really made the yarn tighten up and show its sheen. I can't wait to finish this sweater and give it a good soak to see what happens.