Starry Summer Affair

I did make it to the yarn store, and they did have another skein, and I did finish the last eight rows (yes, only eight rows from the second skein) of the shrug yesterday morning. Of course it's oppressively hot here today, so I hope you appreciate me putting some alpaca on my overheated self to show it off.


This design was originally called a Summer Affair, but since I changed the lace pattern to the aforementioned Estonian star stitch, I changed the name, too. It makes me think of a starry summer night, just starting to get a bit of chill in the air, and me putting this little shrug on as I take a romantic stroll along the banks of the Seine with, like, Idris Elba (or maybe a stroll along the banks of the North Saskatchewan with hometown boy Nathan Fillion?)


Anyway, it turned out quite pretty, although I won't point out to you the things I did wrong, which are glaringly obvious to me. I will mention that I shortened the peplum a bit by decreasing the short rows a bit faster than the pattern called for. I also sort of wonder if I shouldn't figure out a way to block the lace edging. It looks sort of cool all ruffly like that, but I could block it to make more of a scalloped edge, although blocking it would be a bit of a pain, if I really want to do it right. As yet undecided.

All in all, it is a cute and quick little project (would have also been inexpensive had I not had to buy that second ball of yarn, but now I guess I have lots left over for some other little bit of alpaca froth, when the weather cools down again. I'm thinking a reversible cable scarf on teeny needles...)

Starry night

What's that you say? You didn't believe that my alpaca lace was going to look all that much better, when blocked? Feast your eyes on this:

Oh, estonian star stitch... almost too lovely to be real.

The New Projects

I've been puttering away on a couple of cute summer projects. One of them is a pullover from Verena Knitting magazine (ravelry) in aran-weight cotton which I got with a birthday gift certificate in May (thanks to my sisters.) The yarn is fat and soft and squishy -- it really fulfills the promise of its name: Cloud Cotton. Of course knitting with it is much faster than knitting with the DK, sock, or laceweight that I've been using in my other projects. I'm already finished the back of this pullover. Don't get your hopes up for a really quick finish, though -- I still have the front and two long sleeves to go.


In the meantime, I've been using that gorgeous alpaca laceweight yarn I got at the Fiber Festival to make a little shrug (ravelry) that I fell in love with. Mind you, I didn't fall in love with the lace pattern used in the design, so I spent a day or two swatching different patterns with different needles until I found something I liked. This is an Estonian star pattern (which I borrowed from Knitty's Laminaria shawl pattern) done on a huge needle (US9, or 5.5mm.) It has an interesting three-dimensional texture right now, and doesn't look like much, but as is the case with lace, it should open up and flatten out and show its beauty with a stern blocking once this piece is knit. Then comes the real fun -- the seaming, the peplum, the lace edging, the showing-off.