Sunday, June 12, 2011

Lace & Swingy

I originally bought this yarn (Elann baby merino lace) to make a bunch of hot pink bridesmaids shawls. Unfortunately, the color of the yarn that arrived wasn’t hot pink at all, but a deep cranberry red (dammit online shopping!!).

Then I saw this pattern in Vogue Knitting Fall 2008 (one of my all-time favorite issues) and the designer section(s) always pique my interest.  The magazine said it's a Rebecca Taylor design but I have subsequently found this listed under Heather Carlson (in Ravelry).  I am not sure whether it's a typo by VK or if Heather Carlson designed it for Rebecca Taylor or...?  Anyway, the pattern required a lot of lace yarn, which I had, and so I casted on.

This was back in 2009...

The pattern took a V-E-R-Y long time to knit.  It wasn't a particularly difficult pattern but I decided to knit the bottom twisted rib piece (2 fronts + 1 back) all in one piece.  It was also required knitting 4 lace strands held together, which required a little bit more attention than usual.  The entire piece was terribly unmotivating!

Then there were the twisted rib sleeves.

And after that, 3 lace panels.

The seaming also took a lot of time and planning.  Since all the pieces were different sized and involved pleats, I had to do a lot of math and trial and error to get it right.  The details of the seaming process are documented in ravelry.
Halfway through seaming, I realized that the instructions may be wrong.  The neck opening (for the back) was supposed to be 3" but mine was only 1.5" (my gauge wasn't off, the math in the pattern didn't add up).  Since I was never fond of the garter stitch collar anyway (I felt that there were too many different types of stitches - twisted rib, lace, scallop edge) and since I didn't want to rip the sewed pieces apart, I designed a new collar.  The instructions for the collar are also documented in ravelry.
It is F-I-N-A-L-L-Y done.  It was a lot of work and planning (even with a pattern) but the final product is worth it.  It looks like something that would be found in an Anthropologie store.  I love it!

2 comments:

blublu said...

I had already lost it at "4 lace strands held together". Holy cow. Turned out very nice and I love the colour!

NostalgicKnot said...

Nice work!