Now that the recipient of this gift has received it, I can finally reveal the project I was working on several weeks ago: The Suzanne Stole (I named it after my sister, the recipient).
Remember how a while back I was talking about designing my own shawl with a simultaneous lace edging, also for my sister? Well, this is not it :P The yarn I was using for that other project was shedding like crazy, and because it was a deep crimson colour, the little fibres would be so obvious on whatever I was wearing, and whatever the work surface was, at the time of knitting. I'm not really sure what makes yarn shed like that; it's not like I was using extreme force on it, or knit with very tight tension. It was a 100% alpaca yarn, too, by Artesano. Anyone who knows why, please demystify me. But anyway, that's why I sort of left that project aside….
The Suzanne Stole is also my own design. I entertained the idea of knitting a lace border all around the leafy centre, but I decided I quite liked the organic look of the leaves along one edge. The simple, pointed lace edging in this case was knitted on after the central part was complete. I think knitted-on edgings are not only great for indecisive knitters like me, who might like to start a project while still mulling over what kind of edge pattern to use, but it's also practical in that you have absolute control over exactly how many full repeats each of the main body and edging patterns that you want.
The yarn I used for the stole is a 100% baby alpaca yarn, named 'Inca Alpaca', by Classic Elite Yarns ( can you tell I like 100% alpaca yarn?). It has a smooth hand, and knits up to a nice, soft and squishy fabric. It looks like the heavy-worsted yarn would not be suitable for knitting lace, when you look at the completed, pre-blocked form of my stole, below left. (In fact, all lace work at this stage generally looks less than impressive; so we, as knitters, just have to have faith that it will all work out in the end!) Of course, after working some magic, that is blocking, the knitted fabric stretched out, as anticipated, to a larger size and relaxed to open up the lace work. Perhaps also due to the stretching and having less weight per unit area, the stole became a lot lighter, but retained its warm and cosy properties. Check out the before and after photos below!
Looking at it now, the stole would have probably benefited from having a straight-edged lace border on the exposed side, or having an extra repeat of the central lace panel, width-wise, to make it slightly wider and compensate for any curling of the leafy edge that may occur with wear. I did suggest to my sister, though, that if curling does occur, she could always wear it as a neck-scarf, until it's time to wash and re-block again :)
I knitted the stole so that it would be long enough to wear in my 2 favourite ways - loosely wrapped around the shoulders, or simply draped over them, to show the lace pattern to its best advantage. It's so warm and snuggly, I didn't want to part with it!
I was so excited to hear that my sister really likes it, and it gives me a buzz whenever I see pictures of her wearing it :)
Well, onwards and upwards! I hereby declare that my next shawl design shall be one with a simultaneously-knitted lace edging. Yep. Not giving up on that one lightly, after just one yarn mishap.
More updates coming soon on what's currently on my needles :)
Knit on x
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