I can knit laceweight now!
Hold the presses everyone! This is MAJOR news!
After an entire knitting career where I couldn't hold a strand of yarn much thinner than fingering weight, as of yesterday afternoon I can knit with laceweight yarn! The picture above is yet another Leila sample (I'm insane, I know!), this time knit with Malabrigo Laceweight on size 3 needles. This lace yarn is the ONLY laceweight yarn in my stash, bought solely because it was so gorgeous I couldn't NOT buy it. The color (it's 92 - Little Lovely) spoke to me and said "buy me just to look at me!" and I just couldn't resist. I even wound one ball, just to see how the colors would play together in the actual knitting, but then I stuck the yarn on a shelf and never intended to try to knit with it, ever.
Fast-forward to yesterday, when I was trying to edit the full-size version of the Leila pattern and I got stuck. After getting really annoyed with myself, I decided there was no way around knitting the full-size version again to double-check the pattern before sending it to the testers . . . but then I realized I had nothing in the stash that was the same gauge as the Fleece Artist Cashlana I had used other than the exact same color Cashlana. And there was no way I was knitting the exact same shawl with the exact same yarn and color! Even in the interest of an error-free pattern, that was too much for me. So I went digging for something else in the "thinner than fingering" category and found these two skeins of laceweight and thought I might as well try it.
After fumbling through the first few rows, I found that my hand wasn't really hurting, so I continued on. After about an hour, I still had no pain or cramping, so I thought maybe this was really for real. And then after finishing the first set of lace, I knew it was true!
I can knit with laceweight yarn now!
I am so excited, I cannot even tell you. Oh, the new stash enhancement potentials . . . they are calling me!
And Malabrigo laceweight? Even better than regular Malabrigo. Really.
Still working on the jacket design
And now I have much better shots to share with you!
In this shot you can really see the color and texture of the mostly-reverse-stockinette stitch pattern . . . I really love how the Malabrigo looks in this sort of stitch, it's slight variations in thickness and color add just enough interest to the fabric, and of course it feels WONDERFUL. I will definitely have to knit more with this yarn in the future!
I've finished the body and am now working on figuring out the sleeves . . . I realized that i may have put a few too many fiddly details into this design, so it's definitely going to be a challenging knit (as well as a challenging pattern to write out and size!). In the interest of reducing the amount of finishing required, I am trying to figure out how to make the sleeves be knit in one piece -- which sounds perfectly reasonable and even STANDARD, doesn't it? But because these sleeves have a working buttoned cuff that's knit sideways, it is a HUGE challenge to figure this out. I've barely started and I already ripped out 3 times . . .
