Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Calling all lace knitters.

Ok, well I couldn't wait to start my Summer of Lace so I cast on the Hidcote Garden Shawl today and I'm not too sure about it. Even though I'm using smaller needles than specified in the pattern it's still looking a little too lacy for me. This is what I have after completing the first chart of twenty eight rows.

So my question is, does this look right to you? I get the feeling it needs to be a bit tighter but I'm also wondering if the yarn will bloom a bit after it's been soaked for blocking. I'm using Knitter's Addiction Lace Weight Cashmere, which I haven't tried before. It seems nice so far, but I'm just not used to using such fine yarn, the Malabrigo laceweight is nice and fuzzy so it doesn't seem so thin for some reason.

Seeing as I'm still very new to this I'm not sure if I should keep going with this needle size or try it again on much smaller needles. I must say that this attempt on 3mm needles does look better than the few rows I tried on the 3.25mm needles. Anyway, all tips and hints will be much appreciated. Thank You!

3 comments:

Rose Red said...

I wouldn't say I'm a lace knitting expert, but I wouldn't go smaller than 3mm sticks - I think it looks fine!

Bells said...

hmmm it does look quite open doesn't it? I think it's ok though - if you look at the solid bits, they don't look too open. Maybe a bit, but not too much to my eyes anyway. But I can see why you'd be worried.

I don't know about the yarn blooming. I haven't knit with it (I know I said in my previous comment i had, but I was confused).

Bells said...

i meant to say too that Eunny Jang says her favourite lace knitting needle size is 4.5mm so you're a long way off that - wonder what THAT would look like!