Not lace?
Monday August 13th 2007, 6:16 pm
Filed under: Knit

When most of your yarns are fingering or laceweight, and you want to work with something with more heft to it, combining yarns creates a chance to combine and play with color a bit. I find that the finished effect tends to be somewhat flatter than had it been knitted up in a single strand–and yet, the laceweights have more twists per inch in the spinning than a comparable worsted strand, so it seems to me to be less likely to pill in the finished project.

Yarns: Schaeffer Yarn’s handpainted “Anne,” Elann’s “Baby Silk” in Sapphire, and random stash 90/10 silk/cashmere that I dyed royal blue ages ago.

Anne Schaeffer, Elann Baby Silk, and cashmere/silk laceweight


6 Comments so far
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Alison, your “Not Lace” is gorgeous. What a pretty color combo! It reminds me of deep water. Is that mistake rib?

Comment by karen w 08.13.07 @ 6:42 pm

Thank you! I think so; anyway, it’s mult of 6+3, row 1: *k3, p3; end k3. Row 2: *K1, p1; end k1. Every row starts and ends with a knit stitch, and the second stitch you do always matches the stitch facing you, clueing you instantly in to whether you’re doing a k1 p1 or a k3 p3 row. I should put this all on the pattern page, I guess, after I finish and can take a good picture of the thing. It’s slow going; I find ribbing work a bit hard on the hands to do.

Comment by AlisonH 08.13.07 @ 7:54 pm

That looks nice and squishy!

As for the green in my cauldron…errr, dyepot, I am using Prochemical dyes (prochemical.com) and I mixed yellow and dark blue to get the green. If you’re interested further I can look at my notes and give you more specifics. It was totally by chance. The green is a emerald color, slightly varigated.

Comment by Amanda 08.13.07 @ 7:58 pm

It is a beautiful color! I think ribbing can be hard on the hands too.

Comment by Sonya 08.13.07 @ 8:52 pm

very very pretty!

Comment by Romi 08.14.07 @ 9:52 am

I’m totally with you on multiple strands held together for larger gauges. In my case, the most spectacular success was the sweater(!) I knit for myself to protect me from 45F degrees while camping in a tent. It was totally intended to be a wearable blanket, so to speak.

(For the record, this is the only long sleeved sweater I’ve ever knit for an adult. I’ve knit 155 pair of socks, though, and endless accessories of a zillion types. One short sleeved tee, a tank and a dance top… so you can imagine how cold I was the year before at the music festival, that I determined to knit a sweater before the next festival came around.)

I used two strands of Lamb’s Pride Worsted (more like Aran weight than worsted) held together. I ended up with 2.85st/inch (this for someone who normally knits socks on zeros).

I’m a small person, 5’2″ and 120lb. That sweater is huuuuge, on purpose, so that I can wear a sweatshirt and turtleneck underneath it, and maybe one more underlayer past that. It covers my tush, and it really does the trick of keeping me warm enough to not feel endangered by Mother Nature on a chilly September evening in Michigan.

If I’d knit that sweater in one strand of super-bulky/chunky or whatever they call that gauge, I’d not be able to move in it. As it is, the sweater has a lovely flat surface and it drapes pretty darned well for a blanket!

I wish more folks would try this method. I think they are afraid they will miss a strand or something.

Comment by LynnH 08.26.07 @ 9:43 am



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