A Bit of Sparkle

I've finished the fronts of my entrelac cardigan, but I've put it to one side to make a cardigan for Isabel, my granddaughter, for a special occasion. My lys (local yarn shop) didn't have much yarn in natural fibres, which is always my first choice, so I decided to go for glitz instead. The yarn is 'furry' with lots of sparkly sequins. Makes knitting at night interesting!

The yarn is a different thickness to that used in the original pattern, so I have to alter the stitch count. But I'm still using the knitting chart and dimensions. I hope I get it all right!

Jessica

Jessica was designed by Kersti Annear. I used the pattern I printed out ages ago, but I'm pretty sure it'll be available on Craftree. It's a clever pattern. I drew myself a little diagram to show the structure, since it's not immediately obvious:

Round 14

Round 14 is done, well before the next round comes out.

Zipping Along

Entrelac knitting seems laborious, with its constant turning of the work, but it goes along quite quickly. I've reached armhole length already.

Half Way

The Spring doily has reached the stage where one round is slightly daunting. So I've decided to aim for a quarter of the round each day. Friday and Saturday, I'm half way through round 14. Here's a closer view

Another Cross

I used Grace Tan's pattern again to make a gift for a friend who wants a bookmark for her bible. There's a link to Jane's Bookmark Cross on the right of this page. I usually use Victorian sets for the tail, but this time I've done a spiral chain. That's because I saw a link on muskaan's  Tatting Resources page to Sherry Pence's tips for making a josephine or spiral chain .  What gave me that  aha moment was not Sherry's tip about dropping the shuttle often, but that the chain is worked in direct tatting, ie with unflipped stitches. I've not tried that before. My chain isn't perfect, but a huge improvement on previous attempts with flipped stitches.

Every week I get a report from Keep and Share, the site that hosts my patterns, to tell me how many times during the week each pattern has been viewed. Almost every week, there are way more views of Jane's Bookmark Cross than any other pattern. I thought Grace Tan must do something to advertise her pattern. But I had a discussion with her recently and she said no, she does nothing to bring attention to the pattern. We concluded that tatted crosses are just a popular thing to look for.

Ribbing

I don't usually knit a sample for ribbing when I'm designing knitwear. But entrelac widens knitting considerably, so whereas ribbing usually has a similar stitch count to the main part, in entrelac knitting the ribbing will have a lot more stitches than the main part. How many more? I don't know unless I knit a swatch. I cast on 20 stitches and worked 10 rows knit one, purl one rib and then took the swatch off the needles without casting off. First I measured the swatch completely relaxed and worked out how many stitches I'd need to get the length I want - 200 stitches. Then I stretched the swatch as much as possible, measured it and worked out how many stitches I'd need to get the same length - 133. So I need somewhere between 133 and 200 stitches. I settled for 180 stitches, so the ribbing will be slightly stretched.

When I was designing knitwear regularly, I used to keep some aspects constant, just to simplify life. For instance, ribbings were usually 16 rows. So I kept to that here, reducing to 120 stitches on the 16th row. I'm using a circular needle to accommodate a lot of stitches, even though I'm working back and forth. Now for the entrelac....