Hanami Stole

Hurrah! The Hanami Stole is finished! I persevered through those last boring rows and blocked it yesterday. I think it's very pretty and if you haven't checked out Pink Lemon Twist yet you really should.

I think I chose the wrong yarn for the project. Lana Borgesesia Cashwool is a lovely yarn and I'd use it for other projects, but this one needs a heavier laceweight. (Who knew there were different weights of laceweights!?) My finished stole is 15.5 inches wide rather than the 19 the pattern targets. The length of the stole is fine just shy of 70 inches. I added 4 extra 32 row repeats to make sure it would be long enough. (The pattern helpfully advises which charts to repeat in order to make the stole longer and maintain the balance of the basket weave and blossom sections.)

I used 2.75mm needles (pattern was 3.25 or 3.5 I think).
Finished measurements:
14.5 x 55ish inches pre blocking
15.5 x 68ish inches post blocking

Having said all of that about the yarn, was a pleasure to knit with and blocked beautifully- so I'd use the yarn again - just not for this!

I blocked the stole using my new blocking wires. They are a huge improvement over pins and easier than using beading wire. The big advantage they have over beading wire or thread is that the blocking wires are great for really stretching the piece. I'm not convinced that advantage is worth the cost of the blocking wires - so I'll reserve judgement for now.

I'm still obsessed with knitting lace and have a few more projects lined up! Some yarn and a pattern arrived for one yesterday that I'm tempted to begin - but I want to make some amendments to the pattern so I'll have to give it a bit more 'thinking time' before I cast on. In the meantime I'm working on an aran weight shawl and of course a pair of socks!

Knitting Surgery

The Hanami is finished (hoorah!) and blocking now. More on that in my next post when it's released from the pins...


Before I could block I had to perform a little surgery on a couple of mistakes I'd made in the knitting. As someone who HATES ripping back when I find a mistake more than 2 rows back my first thought is: can I fix this with a bit of post knitting darning? (Actually, my first thought is - can I get a way with this?? And after debating with myself that no I can't live with it - I move on to the fixing options.)


The first of the Hanami examples occurred in the basket weave half of the stole. I still don't entirely know what happened - but I suddenly notice a big (bigger than expected) hole in the pattern about 15 rows back. Sigh. No amount of stretching or blocking was going to fix the problem. So before blocking I threaded a darning needle and carefully tried to create a bit more structure to minimise the hole.


The second happened in the very boring final repeat. I felt it was the knitting gods smiting me for mocking how dull the knitting was. Somehow I managed to drop about 5 stitches from the needles and they dropped about 4 rows. Grrrrrrr..... I picked them up and thought all was fine, but about 4 rows later I noticed that I had somehow converted what should have been two blossoms to one. And as this section wasn't the random part - it was pretty obvious. More darning needle surgery.



Do other knitters do this? Or is it considered a cop out? I don't know. One of the benefits/drawbacks of being a self taught make it up as you go along knitter is that you don't know if what you are doing is amateur or genius! You live in happy ignorance of whether your latest bit of work is the sign of a true craftsman or of clumsy hands!?

Knitting to Snooze By....

What makes some knitting boring? (And this is not a question to non-knitters who find all knitting boring.)(Fools.) But why is it that some knitting keeps us going and seems to fly by, while other bits just induces yawns and we have to be tied to the chair to make any progress.

I was thinking about this yesterday and today as I'm approaching the end of the Hanami Stole. The first half of this project flew by. I couldn't stop knitting. I loved the pattern - a 16 stitch 32 row repeat. It made sense and looked great. WooHoo!!

And then I began the second half of this asymmetrical stole. The stole moves from the structure of the basket weave pattern (yeah!) to the random falling blossom pattern (yawn!). The overall effect of the second half of the pattern isn't a yawn - it's quite striking. The blossoms begin to appear one or two at a time, and then gradually more and more appear per row until the final chart which is blossom-mania.

I guess part of what makes this part of the stole boring (for me) is that there aren't any visible milestones, each row alone adds very little, even 20 rows adds little....it takes the whole thing to get the 'ah!' moment. I just need constant proof of my cleverness I guess -- waiting until the end to see the whole effect is not enough for my instant gratification self.

I don't think the boring bits take longer to knit -- it just feels like it. During the first half of the pattern I had to force myself to take breaks. I would knit for an hour and think it had been 5 minutes. For the blossom pattern I have to convince myself to do every row. And they seem to take forever. Although I'm sure they take no longer than the basket weave rows. (Probably quicker.)

But I will not give up. 32 rows left of the most tedious bit (row 1 *knit 2 tog, yo* repeat forever, row 2 purl, row 3 *yo, slip 1, k1 psso* repeat forever, row 4 purl) (just typing that out sapped my will to knit). Anyway - I will soldier on and should have Hanami ready for blocking tomorrow or Wednesday.

Hanami Stole is Underway! (and the greatest invention ever) (sort of)

This weekend I finally cast on for the Hanami Stole . It is such a lovely pattern, and I really like the asymmetrical design. (Actually all of her designs look great - the site Pink Lemon Twist is a great place to visit and be inspired.)(And to prove that point - a quick review of the front page of her blog yielded yet another sock pattern I've got try. It's this pattern from Cookie (she may be the same person who designed the Monkey socks I did last week.)). (When I finally do confess just how much I've acquired knitting wise in the last month I expect that sock pattern will be on the list.)

Right, anyway, back to the stole. I'm knitting it in Lane Borgesesia laceweight cashwool (which I think is fondly referred to as Loony Boony on the knitting forum). It's a lovely pale pink colour (which you can't really tell from the picture - but it is!) and I like working with it. It does however come as a skein of a whopping 1300 yards of knitting loveliness....

Which leads nicely to my nomination (this week) of the greatest invention ever.... the yarn swift, followed closely by the yarn winder. Wahey! 1300 yards wound in a lightning 10 minutes. No fuss no muss. From skein to a lovely little usable ball (or whatever that shape is called) of yarn.

The cast on includes 47 beads, I've used Austrian crystal 6mm beads. The pattern recommends adding the beads with a method involving a crochet hook -- but I didn't have a small enough hook so I modified things a little and just thread the beads onto the yarn putting them into place during the cast on.

I had to move down 2 needle sizes though to get the pattern definition I think works best so I'm knitting on 2.75mm rather than 3.25mm. The finished stole won't be quite as wide as the pattern, but I'll add a few repeats to keep most of the length.

All of that got me to wondering (as someone new to knitting with laceweight yarn) if perhaps I'm being too conservative, and knitting it more loosely on the larger needles would look fine once blocked. I do wish patterns talked a bit more about the before and after of knitting with such fine yarn.....

The pattern is well written, the charts are very clear and I've only come across one small error on the number of beads required - by my calculation it should be 47 but the pattern says 44. I'm enjoying knitting the stole so far and expect it will keep my interest to the end.

Sock Update

The Monkeys are finished. (Finished meaning all knit up - but still not grafted.) (So not finished.)(But very close.) I really liked knitting them.I was due to start Bayerische next but there seems to be some sort of worldwide shortage of the colour I ordered for them so I'm still waiting for the yarn... In the meantime I've cast on these Regia self patterning socks. Apologies to all at Regia - but lord I think these are unattractive! Fun to knit though. I'm just sad enough to be entertained by the changing colours and the I find myself thinking "I'll just knit to the next stripe.." so they are speeding along.