Thursday 26 August 2010

One-skein project: Pretty Thing in Smitten

This one got hold of me and wouldn't let go.  I had most of a ball of Smitten (colour: soft slate) left over after determining the ball-band gauge, and I've been admiring the Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing pattern for a while,  (Ravelry link here), and, well.  Just well.  I knit on this just about every chance I got for three days, and I love the result!

Pretty Thing was originally written for a very different type of yarn - fingering weight, and so fluffy as to be almost insubstantial.  Smitten is a DK weight silk - heavy and fluid.  And as you might expect, the results of my yarn substitution make for quite a different finished object.

Most significantly, a drapey lace fabric is never going to stand under the chin like the original cashmere blend does.  This is more of a collar than a cowl, and I'm wearing it folded over as a result.  If I were to do this again, I might take note of where the fold falls, and swap the right and wrong sides in that general region - just so that the right side of both sets of scallops shows, when worn. 

I also cut one repeat of the pattern out (around-the-way), because Smitten knits to far fewer stitches per inch than two-ply cashmere, and I knit it flat.  Because I couldn't find the right size DPNs, and magic loop makes me crazy.  I can find the seam, if I look, but it's really not obvious.

A note on blocking:  Wet-blocking silk is an interesting exercise.  Silk tends to get 'crispy' as it dries, and you need to beat it up a bit to get the blocked object to soften.  I find it fascinating that the softening doesn't undo all the careful blocking, but honest!  It doesn't!

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful! I like the folded down collar effect. I can see why you couldn't stop working on it.

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