Knitting with Lace Weight Yarn and Having the Right Needles

I began knitting another lace shawl. This is the lovely Haruni by Emily Ross. This is one of the first lace patterns that I fell in love with, but have put it off as I thought it was too hard. I even posted about the yarn I bought to do this project over 6 months ago. However, things change and I am doing this project with a completely different yarn than planned. I decided to use the Cascade Alpaca Lace in Garnet that I bought on a lark a couple of months later.

This yarn is 100% baby alpaca and is the finest yarn that I have ever tried to knit. This was the crux of my problem. Through knitting about 32 rows, I was repeatedly tinking back to redo stitches that I picked up under the row beneath that which I was knitting. This error basically un-knits the stitch and creates a slip stitch of the row beneath and a long loose yarn over in the same place. Of course, if not caught, the pattern is  ruined. I was also struggling with trying to SSK (slip slip knit) -- my Addi Turbos just did not have enough of a point.

I had "graduated" myself to Addi Turbos over a year ago when I got a great recommendation from my knitting sister who convinced me to try them. I have been a rabid convert ever since. Today, I am trying the Addi Turbo Lace. So far this has turned out to be a good decision. I have knitted only a couple of additional rows and it has made a huge difference. SSK's are much easier and I am not slipping under the stitch.

In the picture on the left, I think you can see that the points on the Addi Turbo Lace (the gold needle) has a longer and sharper point than the regular Addi Turbos have. In addition, the Addi Turbo Lace needles seem to be slightly less slick than the regular Turbos. This might be a benefit as the only drawback to the Addi Turbos have been that they are almost too slick for lace. It is true that the right tool for the job makes all the difference.

As long as I am talking about the baby alpaca yarn being the finest that I have ever knit, I thought I would give you a visual on different yarn weights.  Here is a graduation of different yarn weight of yarn that I have in my stash. On the left is the lace weight yarn in question, Cascade Alpaca Lace. It is followed by a fingering weight yarn, sock weight, sport weight, DK (double knit) weight, worsted weight and bulky weight. Of course all of these yarns are different manufacturers and fibers, but I think that you can see the differences between most. Prior to the Cascade Alpaca Lace, the finest lace I had used was the fingering weight yarn which I used for my Alexandra Gold.

Well, I have some knitting to get through, so I will sign off. Happy Knitting!

Remember -- Don't forget

As I have mentioned before, I commute daily by train into Chicago for work. This gives me lots of time to knit and nap. I usually nap on the way in to the city -- it is usually 5:50 AM when I get on the train; and I knit on the way out of the city. I usually take the same train in, sit in the same seat and often wake up at the last minute as we are pulling into Union Station. There have been three times when I am still sluggish and half asleep when I get off the train and have been forgetful enough that I have left my train pass behind. How I can miss grabbing a pass in a hot pink cover and yellow lanyard. . .  well that is beyond me!

I don't know if anyone reading this has ever themselves commuted, but monthly passes are expensive -- $192.52 a month at the present time. If I loose the pass on the last day of the month -- not a catastrophe, but loose a new pass before the month begins? Ouch!!!

But this is when the man who is usually the conductor on the 5:50 train come in. I learned a long time ago to slip my business card in the pass holder so that if I  lose it and it is found someone might turn it in. The conductor checks passes everyday and sells tickets to those who need them and he knows my pink and yellow pass! He has found it three different times and has called me and left it in lost and found for me. What a guy.

So I cannot leave this unrewarded and I have knitted a thank you gift. In the winter, the conductors have to hop off and on the train at every stop and many of them wear a scarf and gloves with no coat. I decided a scarf that will match his uniform would be perfect. So I settled on a navy blue wool scarf. I wanted it to be something that he can wear so it had to be a subtle design.

I selected a pattern that I found through Ravelry. Memory Lapse is a traveling rib. It is manly enough for a guy and just the "ticket" (pun intended!) as the name is perfect the price is free! The pattern was designed for use with a worsted yarn, but I changed it up when I found a beautiful DK Merino Superwash by Plymouth Yarn. Some modifications were meant to be.

The yarn, like many superwashes I have used has lots of stretch, so I dropped down from a US size 9 to a US size 7. I love, love, love the yarn! It is super soft and is forgiving to uneven stitches. There were a couple of places that I had to knit and tink and knit and tink and knit again and the yarn was sturdy and took the abuse.

The second modification that I made to the pattern came as an accident. The traveling rib is supposed to travel evenly in one direction, however, after just a few rows, I found that I had already switched directions. So I just decided to let the ribs meander as opposed to walking a straight line! It looked pretty wonky as I knitted it. The sides were all curvy and I was putting all my faith in the hope that blocking would make all the difference in the world.

Lesson Learned: Although one of the best purchases I ever made was the lace blocking wires, I have not really used them on more than just lace. So I decided to use them on this scarf. I blocked it out to within an inch of it's life at 10.5 inches wide by 60 inches long. However, it was too flat and the stitches that had been picked up on the blocking wires were stretched out and made the edges look all uneven. So I dampened the scarf with my hands and threw it into the dryer on low heat. Now it looks much better.

Happy Knitting!