Sunday, April 01, 2007

Productive week

Despite the frogging and change of yarn, I've enjoyed knitting Kimono. I'm glad I decided to give up on the variegated laceweight and settled on the fingering cashmere. I love the soft luxurious feel so perhaps it's worth the effort of washing, blooming and detangling the yarn afterall.

For those of you who're constantly surfing for affordable cashmere and silk yarns do pay a visit to Colourmart . There's no need to go to all the trouble of washing etc., it's me, I enjoy touching the yarn while knitting, otherwise the same effect can be achieved after washing the FO in the recommended way .

Pattern : Kimono Shawl (from Folk Shawls)

Size : 24" by 70" (blocked)

Yarn : 1000 yds, 100% cashmere, fingering weight, pale blue (from Colourmart )

Needles : 3.75 mm

The pattern, a tad boring, is easy enough not to need any row count recording. Yes, I would knit it again and I'm already planning another one.

I must confess I'm not too fond of variegated laceweights after several swatchings to find the perfect pattern for the yarn. Maybe I'm impatient, I expect to see almost instant stitch definition and pattern form a few inches into the knitting. For now, it's probably going to be plain colours till I go a little 'mad' and can't resist buying yummy looking skeins of variegated yarns on the Internet. Believe me, that's very very likely and often!

Determined to make use of the skein and after various consultations with Mona and Doreen I casted on Evelyn Clark's Flower Basket shawl (IK Fall 2004) with double strands of the laceweight Merino Mohair. Like Doreen said, the colours are indeed "all jumbled up" but I kind of prefer the deeper and better defined tones.

The shawl took 5 days and I binded off till 1.30 am last night just so that I can show it off today!

Dottie is guarding over it while it's blocking and she's never made a mess or stepped on my work yet! What a difference blocking makes as you can see from the other pic.



4 comments:

R a i n said...

FIVE DAYS????? THATS IT? wow...it looks great!

Anonymous said...

Ditto what rain said... I can't believe you finished that in FIVE days. Both shawls are stunning!!
Oh, and I agree with you on variegated laceweights... they are so pretty, but I think to really show off the lace stitches, the colors take the focus away sometimes.

Anonymous said...

oh my goodness!!! 5 days for a shawl?? you must be a mad woman!!! erm...dont u do anything else at home besides knitting *faint*

i'm so jealous!! i wish i can knit as fast as you!!

bluey said...

both shawls are lovely.
5 days!!! I think i need at least 50 days to finish it.