There’s a Möbius strip on my needles. I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is a must-knit for me. It’s my engineering background coming through, I know… I just think it’s really cool.
Now, if you don’t know what a Möbius strip is, think of it as a twisted loop. The neat thing though is that it only has one outside edge. So it’s very well suited for knitting. You start in the center and build out.
The yarn that I chose for this is less than stellar, actually. I used Pearl from LANG (42% kid mohair, 54% acrylic and 4% polyester, 105 m per 50g and 6.5 mm circular needles). It’s really nice and soft, and I like the colour very much, but it disintegrated (twice!) as I tried to cast on. It appears that it doesn’t hold up for longtail cast on of more than 5 sts. Since I needed to cast on 120, you can see why this is a problem. So I changed cast on methods to knitting on the stitches. It’s a lot slower (for me) but at least the yarn didn’t break.
Well…. the KAL is underway, and so far so good. It’s landed at 1,590 members – and it’s truly an international group. The first part of the pattern was released on Wednesday, and already a number of pictures are cropping up. They all look wonderful, and I enjoy seeing how differently it looks in the various yarns. So…. keep knitting and posting.
At the moment I’m winding yarn for my next project. I have close to 2,800 yards of laceweight yarn to wind, so it’s taking a while. But it’s a lovely Merino Lace from skacel (1375 yds per 100 g). Maybe I’ll finish winding the yarn this evening so I can cast on the next project. Fingers and mind are itching to get going.
Ravelry is also fun. There are SO many pictures in there, and so many lovely projects. One of the really nifty features (I think) is that you can quickly get a list of all the other people working on a particular project. So, for example, if you’re working on a Lizard Ridge afghan, there are 272 projects listed and you can view all those pictures. Or…. if you’re thinking about casting on for a new shawl, you can see if anyone else has knit it and get an idea of which yarns and colours you like. It’s great fun. Of course, with all these lovely pictures right at your fingertips, it’s hard to be restrained and not start everything you see….
First of all I have to thank all the people who have signed up for the Mystic Waters KAL. I am simply blown away by the response – 790 members right now, and still growing. I’m really looking forward to it starting on October 24, and seeing what the shawl looks like in all these other yarns. So far I’ve been browsing through the swatches, and of course all the messages. It’s really fun to see where everyone is from. There are knitters from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Chech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, UK, Canada, US, India, Saudi Arabia and Australia, to mention some. Amazing!
Sign ups are still open, so if you want to join us, please head over to the yahoo group.
Secondly, I received my SP package yesterday. Many thanks. It contained some lovely Panda licorice, a SPA book and a skein of Misti Alpaca Lace 2-ply. The yarn is wonderfully soft, and I have to say that I am very partial to the natural colour. It also included a suggested lace shawl pattern for a Swallowtail Shawl. The construction of that shawl is really neat.
Finally, I received my long awaited Ravelry invite. I’ve not done much more than sign up, but you can find me there as knitandknag. I did notice that both the Burridge Lake Afghan and the Mystic Waters KAL beat me there though….. so now I have to catch up on what you’ve been saying.
… the Burridge Lake Aran Afghan!
It was a delightful knit and design. I thoroughly enjoyed the process. My afghan was designed to be symmetrical with mirror image panels on the sides and a center panel with mirror image braids on the sides. The edging is also symmetrical.
It also contains a number of different braids, trinity stitch and bobbles. All to minimize the use of the boring stockinette/reverse stockinette stitch. The trinity stitch was particularly enjoyable since it added some work on the WS rows.
The afghan was started at the end of March and completed in the middle of July. It then took a week or so to write up the pattern properly. It’s amazing, but it’s really different to write up a pattern for someone else than to keep notes for myself.
Anyhow, the pattern was submitted to MAGKnits, and as you know by now, accepted for publications. I’m very happy with the result.
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