I snapped a picture of my coffeetable the other day (it’s actually coffeetableS, as in, two IKEA Lack side tables side-by-side) because it made me happy how pretty everything on it looked:
I am working on an idea for an infinity scarf where a stitch motif is decreased and increased in pattern. I like the way certain bottom-up shawl designs look on the center spine, so am going to play with that a bit. Alternatively I may do something with splitting the motifs and putting other stitch patterns between the halves for a more unusual effect than just knitting a tube in pattern.
The first thing I had to do was see if the yarn I’d wanted to use would work. The cones of yarn from the Pendleton store are lovely, but a bit rough. I know from using other coned yarns that they are oiled to be used on machines and that oil makes them feel much harsher than they really are. After washing this swatch in boiling hot water with a bit of conditioner and then dunking it in some ice cold water, it’s deliciously soft and I’d love to wear it around my neck. Whew! Pattern is Frost Flowers from the first Barbara Walker Treasury:
Obviously it’s been blocked. This is a fine yarn and was worked on size 2.5mm needles. Oh how I need, need, need to learn to knit faster. Also how to not be tired in the evening when I finally get time to work on things, but to still get sleep. 4 hours a night is hardly enough, amirite? Perhaps this is why I cannot “English” today, though the reasons for that are probably myriad.
That is gorgeous! I remember trying to knit that pattern years ago and failing. I should be ok now, but somehow I can’t bring myself to even try.
Are you serious about washing the swatch in boiling hot water? The yarn I use most lately is Holst Garn Supersoft, which comes with spinning oil but needs to be washed in cold/lukewarm water. The only swatch I washed in hot water showed signs of felting.
I do bring the water to a boil (usually in the microwave out of sheer sloth), but I wait for the bubbles to subside before adding my swatch. It sits in the water for about a minute then it’s into a shock bath of as-cold-as-the-tap-gets water. This particular time I could see all the spinning oils rising to the top; it was kind of gross.
Using yarns with oils and what have you on them is so fun; there’s nothing like the “let’s see what we have!” moment when they are dry. (I was so impatient for the swatch to dry so I could keep it in my purse today that I used my blow dryer on it while it was pinned out. Hehe)
Frost flowers is so easy to work that I can literally read the knitting to do it now after working the first row. I remember reading how Barbara Walker said how simple it was to work and I wondered what sort of mystical mushroom she’d ingested because it looks so impressive. It’s definitely not end-of-the-evening-when-one-is-tired knitting, though.
Oh, it looks gorgeous! And impressive! I remember wanting to make frost flower socks, but being intimidated. They’re still somewhere in my design queue… Waaaaaay back there… Somewhere.