The Knitting Update (an UnSock Report)

[treeskin]

The lily of the valley shawl is competely done...edging sewn on, ends worked in, blocked, the whole bit. And very very nice...more open than I was expecting, but still a denser fabric than the pattern showed. Figured out why the edging was worked separately and then sewn on--the pattern on the edging makes pronounced scallops on the cast-on side, but not so nice on the bound-off side. So, it's done, then the bound-off side is sewn on. Weird. I think I could do the edging first, then start in the middle and pick up stitches for the pattern, although that would put the lace pattern upside-down. Might be fun to try, though.

Also took a little time yesterday to pull out a FO from a year or so back, that I hadn't liked, and give it one last chance before frogging it out and reusing the yarn. It's a circular shawl I'd done with no set pattern, just stitch patterns I'd liked. The bulk of the shawl ended up in feather and fan, which is a dense pattern, and the finished shawl was barely four feet wide, which annoyed me greatly. But, I managed to stretch it out to five feet wide, and it looks better. Still a give-away piece, I think, but I'll be happier about it.

That success inspired me to pull out a UFO from Feb and work on it--the Cleo halter top, from (I think) the Summer 2003 edition of Knitty. I'd just started the baby-doll skirt part of the pattern when I'd put it down last, probably out of disgust with the yarn. It's part of the stash I got from Myrna, a very smooth shiny dk cotton, and it's so slippery it's hard to handle, even on bamboo needles. Anyway, I'd had about 4" of the skirt part done when I started yesterday, and about 10" done when I put it down last night. I need to slip the sts onto a piece of yarn tonight, and try it on, to see if it's long enough. I also need to decide if I should leave it as a top, or keep knitting and turn it into a sundress. It'd be a darling dress, but I'm not sure I want to play with this yarn that much.

I'm telling myself that when I get this top done, I can start the U Can 2 Shell, off of chicnknits.com. I'd tried it last year, but had the gauge wrong, and ended up with a dress. I went ahead and bought more cotton yarn (just a cone of Peaches and Cream from Walmart) to do another shell, just haven't got there yet. Figured that'd be a decent road-trip project for Sunday, if I get Cleo done.