Category: River Stole

I have knitting to report

First of all, startitis is still raging. Not only did I start River, I’ve also started on Liesel now. Here’s how she looks like at 2 repeats.

Liesel at 2 repeats

And this is the yarn that I’m using. It’s the Lang Moana yarn that I bought at Lincraft a few weeks ago.

Casted on

I quite like the yarn, especially the colours. But I’m a bit worried that the colours are a bit too noisy for the lace pattern. It is kind of difficult to see the leaves pattern among all those colours! I think I’ll try a few more repeats and see how it goes. I’m leaning towards just continuing with this yarn, since people probably can’t see the pattern anyway when I’m wearing the scarf.

The yarn has quite a nice drape, and quite nice to wear against the skin, even at the back of the neck. It’s 50% cotton and 50% nylon. The problem with this yarn is that it splits easily if I’m not careful, because of its mesh-like texture.

The pattern is not as easy as I thought it would be. I’m used to lace patterns where every other row is just straight purls, which gives me some sort of ‘break’ from reading the chart/pattern every other row. This is not one of those patterns. So far it has been quite tiring, having to continuously look at the chart, and having to look at the knitting to watch out for snags. Well, the pattern’s designer said that the lace pattern would be easy to memorise. So maybe I just have to keep going and hopefully I’ll be able to memorise the pattern, or work out the pattern based on the rows below (like I do with Kiri).

In other news, the fair isle poncho is almost done. Here it is at the moment, modelled by Annette:

Poncho before blocking

It needs blocking, and then some fringes. I’m so not looking forward to fringing it! But I think it wouldn’t look quite right without the fringes.

And here is River, after one whole ball of the Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair.

River

Not much at all, is it? I am quite disappointed. One ball only got me two repeats! And I only have 3 balls. So it doesn’t look like I can make this into a shawl after all. But still, I might still keep going and then use it as lap blanket or something. Just because something is a mistake, doesn’t mean it’s useless! Ha!

Startitis

Whoa, what’s this?? Why it’s a new project!

River stole, setup rows

Closeup of setup rows

It’s the River stole from Rowan 38. I’m knitting this using some Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair in Millet from the stash. The JS mohair is heavier than the prescribed Kidsilk Haze, and has smaller yardage compared to KSH. So I’m a bit worried I might run out of yarn. I only have 3 balls, 87m (95yd) each. Well we’ll see…

I’m using 6.5mm plastic circular needles, I think the brand name was ‘Birch’ or something like that. I like how the needles are fused together to the cords, which means the cords can’t snap off the needles. (I had a bad, bad, bad experience with a pair of cheap circular needles in the past — the cords snapped off the needles after using it for only 1 row!) The only bad thing about this circs is that the cords are still rather stiff, since it’s only the first time I’m using them.

I started this yesterday, after seeing how great the finished products look on the knitalong. And I’ve just been in a very big mood to start new projects this past few days! Not that I’ve finished Kiri shawl and the children’s poncho or anything! I’ve also been itching to start on the lace scarf. Oh dear.

But I haven’t completely neglected my other projects. See, I’ve finished the body of the poncho! Just need the hood now.

Starting on hood