Heart-stopping lace moments

Based on my limited experience, I think there are two kinds of heart-stopping lace moments. The *good* kind is when it's blocked and it looks amazing. The bad kind is when you have a Lace Knitting Accident and you nearly pass out from shock.

We're fine now, of course.



I wanted to see how big the thing was getting and how it looks so far, so I devised a complicated plan involving 4 knitpicks cables (only 2 40-inchers, one short one and one middle-length one. note to self: get more 40-inch cables for stretching out lace pieces) to hold all the stitches with enough room to actually lay the thing flat. I am just over the halfway mark if you count by rows (sadly, only about 1/4 the total area) and have started the second (interesting) lace chart.

I have a handy tip for everybody. When using multiple knitpicks cables to hold your stitches and using those plastic caps to make sure they don't fall off, if you have an odd number of caps left over then you probably have an end that is not capped. Each cable has two ends, and so each cable needs two caps. Not one. Check several times.

Fortunately only about 1/2 of a repeat fell off the needle, and few stitches were dropped. The ones that were dropped were only yarnovers and with careful reference to the chart I made sure I had all my stitches where I needed them. But damn, was that scary.



I am hoping this starts to look more interesting soon.

Math Problem

I hated math until I finished high school and no longer had to do it on a regular basis. When I do math now, it is on my own terms, no teacher is looking over my shoulder and making me feel self-conscious. I was never *that* bad at math, but I was generally pretty slow about it. Now that I'm not timed anymore, it doesn't even matter. So these days math and I get along pretty well.

This is especially good when it comes to knitting, as we often deal with math. I do all sorts of division and multiplication these days. This weekend I ran into a particularly cool math problem, and I thought I'd share it with you.


A knitter wants to make the Cap Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. This shawl calls for 1700 yds of yarn to make a shawl 74" across (radius: 37"). The knitter finds a skein of Merino Oro laceweight with just 1375 yards. How big a shawl can she make?

To solve: the first step is to figure out the area of the pattern shawl, so we know how far 1700 yards gets us. (we are rounding for sanity's sake)

A=πr^2
r=37
A=π * 37^2
A=π * 1367
A=4300 in^2

Ok, so 1700 yards makes 4300 square inches of lace. Now we need to find out how many square inches of lace (x) we can make with 1375 yards of yarn. My algebra here gets kind of ugly, but bear with me.

(4300 in^2)/(1700yds)= x/(1375 yds)

Remember your algebra steps! Multiply across...

1700x = 4300 * 1375
1700x = 5,912,500
x = 5,912,500/1700
x = 3478 in^2

So the new shawl will have an area of 3478 square inches. What's the radius of our new shawl?

A = πr^2
3478 = πr^2
r^2 = 3478/π
r^2 = 1108
(Not even gonna attempt the square root sign)
r = 33 in

So the new shawl will be 66" across, which I think is perfectly acceptable, as I am 66" tall.

Once I've made a swatch of the pattern I'll figure out how many rows I need to leave off in order to reduce the radius by 4". I'll edit the lace pattern from there (more math!)

So, wasn't that fun? Here's something even more fun, for those of you who've made it this far: this yarn ($16.50) was my first wedding-related purchase. 3478 square inches of knitting from now, I'll have my veil done!

In which Liz acquires several bad habits

I have acquired several bad habits recently. Venezia and I are having some minor issues, and this is probably motivating some of my bad behavior.

A disclaimer: I know that for many of you, these things are not bad habits, or at the very least are fairly normal and acceptable. But the truth is, I've been avoiding them for some time now, and it pains me that they've all snuck up on me at once.

Bad Habit #1--Stashing

Three skeins of CTH in the bluegreen colorway for the Cherry Leaf shawl in Victorian Lace Today, acquired two or three weeks ago.

Two skeins of Louet Gems in burgundy and the Twisted Flower Sock Pattern by Cookie A., who is now selling her fantabulous designs here. Now this one actually has a pretty cool story behind it. I fell in mad mad love with the sock when Cookie posted it on her blog. She would be selling it at Stitches West. Now my good buddy Auntie Ann was going to Stitches, and I thought about asking her to pick it up for me because I was in such mad mad love with the pattern. But I hesitated, as I hate buying yarn without knowing I'll get to it really soon. I resigned myself to hoping Cookie would sell the pattern online.

The Friday before Stitches I listened to Lime n Violet's podcast and they, too, are in mad mad love with the Twisted Flower sock, and I took it as a sign. I emailed Ann and asked her to get it for me, but alas! she was off having a fabulous time and didn't get the email until she got home. But, knitbloggers to the rescue, she asked her friend Deepa to save me from the torment of not having Twisted Flowers on my feet. Deepa gets a gold star for being awesome and an extra gold star for picking such a gorgeous color yarn. Yay! Thanks again!

Bad Habit #2--Working on too many projects at once.

There's Venezia. And the Bearfoot socks. Usually, that would be more than enough for me.

Then there was a dishrag. And another, and a third. And another random project with the same dishcloth cotton that, if it ever becomes interesting, I will let you guys know, but for now it isn't very interesting.

Then a friend had a birthday and I decided said friend needed some socks. Thick, squishy, washable socks made out of Mission Falls 1824 Wool on big needles so I could finish them quickly.

Then those were too big, so I frogged them, and then I needed something else to cheer me up, so I cast on for:

Click for big so you can see my pretty Cherry Leaf pattern.
Bad Liz! I still haven't finished the Moebius, which I promised myself I would do before starting the sweet sweet lace. Which I love. A lot.

Bad Habit #3--Warshrags.


Warshrag #1 is mine, and oooh I love it. Warshrag #2 is circular and kinda lacy and wound up going home with a friend who likes it so much she's afraid to use it. Hmm, I think this friend needs to be rewarded for her Appreciation of The Knitting. Maybe with something she will use. Maybe thick, squishy and washable, made out of Mission Falls 1824 Wool.

Does she read this blog? I'm not sure! Takin risks here!

Anyway the above is Warshrag #3, destined for the kitchen of Dave's aunt where it will totally clash with everything, but she said she loved knitted dishrags and hadn't found them in years, and what can I say, if you tasted this lady's cookies you'd fall all over yourself to knit for her, so before I knew it I'd cast on for her own Warshrag.

Do you guys like the crochet edging? I've never done shells before, but they make me smile.

Need some restraint

I finished my swap socks last night. Hurray! I won't be mailing them off until tomorrow or so, because I decided to wash and block them and they still aren't quite dry.

I really, really, really want to start a new project. And y'all, I am not that kind of knitter. Not that there's anything wrong with having five or ten things on the needles, but personally I prefer to have one WIP, *maybe* two if one isn't portable. Right now I have Venezia and that little mohair scarf on the needles. That ought to be enough for me, but I really want something new!

Namely, this:

Shoulder Shawl in Cherry Leaf Pattern from Victorian Lace Today.

As soon as Jr. Mints has received her package I'll post a picture of the yarn I'm sending her. It's been in my apartment for a month, infecting me with its beauty. I think it would be perfect for this. I really want to go to the LYS where I bought it, which had a whole lot of it at the time, and buy three skeins. Mmmm.

But! I already have a lace item on the needles, AND it's using up my good US 7s. I already have something complicated on the needles, and it's using up my complicated knitting concentration time. I don't usually buy yarn too much ahead of time, but I'm so worried that all this gorgeous stuff will be gone if I wait any longer.

I've made a deal with myself. I have to finish all this week's homework and do it well, and send Jr. Mints' package off tomorrow. Then I can go buy the yarn. But I can't cast on until I get to the armpits of Venezia, provided I have finished this:

Remember my Moebius? I didn't think so. Most of the time I don't either.

I started this last spring. The colors are a little washed out in this picture, but you get the idea. It's all seed stitch, except for a stockinette/reverse stockinette (depending on your angle) stripe in the middle. I got to the bindoff the week before I was supposed to leave for Italy, screwed up the bindoff, and couldn't fix it before I left. And I haven't touched it since, except to commandeer its needle and put the unbound stitches on a straight needle (that's what's giving it that exceptionally weird shape). It is, at most, an hour away from being done. And now that it's finally getting warm, I have some motivation to finish it.

So, those are all the measly things that stand in the way of me and this shawl. Better get back to work on the school stuff!

Almost no knitting developments

I ought to apologize now. For the next month or so, there probably won't be much interesting knitting content around here.

First, there are the sock swap socks for Jr. Mints over at the knittyboard. These are gorgeous and fun, but as Jr Mints and I have agreed to make the socks a surprise, I won't be able to show you any pictures until she's received hers. Get excited around the end of February.

Second, there's Venezia. Venezia is beautiful. Venezia is fun to work on.

Venezia is freaking slow.

I cast on for the body on January 11. In two and a half weeks, I have knit almost four inches of this sweater. I know Eunny did the whole sweater in five days, but I am not Eunny, and I must devote the majority of my energies to school right now. Sadly.

I started a third project, but I haven't been working on it much. I got Victorian Lace Today which is an absolutely fabulous book (lovelovelovelove) and started making a little scarf based on one of their patterns.

I got this yarn from Etsy last year and have wanted to do something lacy with it for a long time. This will someday be the "easy lace scarf," one of the first patterns in the book. Until then (and probably long after) it will look like I have a purple and silver cat who is particularly fond of shedding all over my lap.

If somebody could direct me to the origin of this meme I'd appreciate it. A knitter who might be named Kat started it, but I closed the window before I could link to it. They want to see your desktop background. Here's mine:

Florence from San Miniato