Lace Transformations

This is a rough post because I still don’t have internet connected at my new apartment, so I’m posting from an internet cafe.

My digital camera is, sadly, kaput. So the lovely hand-dyed cashmere lace that I’ve been working on cannot be posted in all it’s glory. Luckily, my scanner still works, and I find scanning is a good way to illustrate swatches, so here are a couple.

The first is a lovely pattern which was used in a lace shrug pattern available on Knitty. I’ve knit the swatch on US #5 needles, using a recycled 100% merino sport weight yarn. I’m not that impressed with the lace pattern (though it is lovely in the shrug design), but I really like the way this yarn behaves in a lace pattern, because the effect it creates is quite meaty, solid and substantial, but it is not so heavy a gauge to be awkward. It may need to become a new project?

I’ve been experimenting with lace patterns, and how they are constructed. I’d like to learn to design my own lace patterns eventually.

This swatch shows the transformations that a lace undergoes with very slight changes to its pattern. The yarn is a magnificent recycled 100% cashmere, and it seems like somewhere between lace weight and fingering. The swatch is knit on US#4 needles. I’ve dyed it from quite an ugly pink (I’m not a huge fan of pink) to a vibrant blue, and the entire skeins that I dyed turned out an even more intense shade than this swatch, which was just a test.

So at the bottom of the swatch is English Mesh Lace, which is a 6 st and 8 row repeat. For the next pattern (in the middle), I elongated the pattern by adding an extra 4 rows, making it a 12-row repeat. For the final pattern (at the top), I went back to english mesh lace, but I ‘padded’ the pattern by adding a single knit stitch between the motifs, so the multiple is 8sts + 1. You get quite a different effect out of each of these changes – the original is kind of like a lattice form, the second more like an elongated check, and the third is much more round and organic quality, and has the effect of openwork flowers in a solid background.

The last little experiment that I did today, while putting off jobhunting, was to try knitting with metal wire – are really fine gauge. It was kind of awkward, but there may be potential for jewellery!