Sunday, January 4, 2009

Laminaria!

This shawl deserves a big ! after it's name. I had to rip it only once, but since I stubbornly refused to use stitch markers (for whatever reason) i had to rip a few 1/2 rows from time to time to make sure everything matched up. I am getting much better at reading my lace work- that's for sure.



Laminaria from Knitty
Started in October 2008
Finished on New Year's Eve 08 in time to wear it out that night (unblocked- I'm not a miracle worker).



Yarn: Malabrigo Lace- Verdes
Proccured from Sakonnet Purls in Tiverton, RI
Needle: Size 4 Knitpicks Options



Size: Shawlette (small)
Took less than one skein of the yarn, which was great because I only had one!



Love that haphazzard blocking job. :)
I knew I had to knit this the moment I saw it, especially after I remembered the lovely green yarn in my stash. I would like to knit this pattern again in a solid color to really show off the stitches. It is a wonderful and gorgeous pattern and I must give lots of thanks to the Laminaria KAL on Ravelry for addressing all the issues I had with it even before I had them.
The Malabrigo lace yarn was lovely. Ever so slightly felted on the skein, I took extra care when winding it. However it knit like a champ, never once breaking- even through the 2-into-9 and 3-into-9 stitches of doom. It even held up to all the ripping and reknitting. I would love to work with it again. I also appreciated the softness (of course) because even prior to blocking when it was a ruffly bit of nothingness it never itched or made me sneeze.
Another set of needles freed!



P.S. In this shot you can also see the Brown Flop Hat, inspired by Knitting School Dropout's Brown Flop Hat (so original, I know). I lost all the photos from this so I will just give a brief description of the nuttiness of this knit.
I knit the first one (Classic Elite Wool Bamboo- good stuff) and it was perfect. Then I washed it and it grew to rasta proportions. I looked like an ugly mushroom and it was horrid. You think i would have paid attention to what I read about bamboo "relaxing" in A Knitter's Book of Yarn, but no. So I ripped, rewashed, hung the yarn to dry and reknit the darned thing on smaller needles with less stitches and then all was right in the world and it survived it's blocking with no growth. Sorry for no pics, but they didn't survive the great photo-delete of 2008. Reknit was started 3/28/08 and finished 4/2/08.