About a week before her graduation Miss NB called me from a farmer's market in Maine. She wanted to know if I was interested in owning some homespun alpaca yarn. I asked her to inquire about the weight of the yarn and how much would be required to knit a scarf or even a small sweater. I was told that it was worsted weight but on the light side, that it cost $ 12.00 per skein, the colors available are in the natural range, and that it would take three skeins to knit a longish scarf.
Miss NB told me that the yarn was from Orlando. I asked, "Orlando, Florida?" She replied, "Nope, Orlando the alpaca! He is funny looking but he has nice wool."
So I decided to embark upon lacework, though I have about three other projects in progress. Switching from one project to another is not unusual or frowned upon by people who knit or sew. I try to rein myself in, ultimately, so I can finish all my UFOs.
Counting stitches for lacework is difficult for me. After about twenty failed attempts I am on my way to finishing an Orlando alpaca scarf for next winter. What I did to get there was switch from circular needles to straight custom ordered Signature needles. These are super! I cut up the pattern so that each line is a separate entity and I don't confuse the rows. I made a little flip booklet out of it (see above). Finally, I count every wrong sided row to see if I still have the correct amount of stitches on my needle. If I don't, I go back line by line until I have reached the one where I was on the right track. This makes me a little grouchy.
It takes a fair amount of concentration all in all, but the outcome is nice. This natural alpaca wool smells pretty wonderful and has unexpected tensile strength. Thank you Orlando, the alpaca.
Orlando would be proud to know that his wool had been turned into such a beautiful scarf. The lacework is amazing!
Wow - this is _spectacular_! I'm so impressed that you're knitting lace. I did my first real lace project as a knit-along with friends at my local yarn store and it really helped to have their tips and support. One really helpful tip for lace-knitting is to use a "life line." Many people use a length of unwaxed dental floss, but I used a really strong thread that I happened to have (buttonhole twist, maybe). You thread it through a wrong-side row and keep knitting. If you make a mistake, you can rip back to that row and not worry about losing any stitches. For a complicated pattern or one where you make a lot of mistakes, you can put a life line in every 5-10 rows. You just need to be sure not to catch the life line as your knitting the next row, which will make it tough to pull out when you're done.
Happy knitting!
Ugh - that would be "you're" in the last line. I can't stand mistakes in my writing (although I'll tolerate certain mistakes in my knitting...)
Hi Laurie. Thanks for that great tip! I tend to be a solitary knitter, mostly because I start things at odd hours and because I go through so many moods while knitting. Natural alpaca is fun to work with and has natural oils in it that make it different than colored yarns. I think it has not been so hard to "unknit" because of the oils. However, I am going to begin with lifelines immediately. Happy knitting to you as well.