The chart is now on Stitch Maps!

Original: http://stitch-maps.com/patterns/display/chinese-lace/

My variant: http://stitch-maps.com/patterns/display/chinese-lace-vari...

I’m going to split the bouclé, do half on the top, half on the bottom and the centre will be the plied silk. Lace all the way through. I think the 9” version for Tracey, but maybe the 11” would be more sensible. ponders

20081115

Decided to do my own lace pattern, using Chinese Lace from Barbara G. Walker A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, page 285.

It’s 16 + 7, and I need a fabric width of approximately 65cm, I think. 91cm is far too floppy for my SIL. Now to work out the gauge and decide what to do about the edging…

20081118

With the bouclé on 5mm needles, that’s 20 stitches/10 cm, so I’d have to cast on 135 stitches, putting the circumference at 70cm, which is fine. The other option is far too tight.

The bouclé is going to be interesting to knit with, I think I’ll just do it straight as it’s kind of pointless to do lace in this. I can’t see the stitches at all, though I can tell that the stockinette side is smoother.

Casting on. Full throttle ahead!

20081208

Tore it all out. Heh. Rolled it up, started over.

Cast on 135 stitches in the plain silk.

20081220

Tore it all out again. I need to write this pattern out in the round, when I have to think it’s not working and I keep making huge errors. The good news is that I totally have the silk under control now. :D

20081226

Okay, rewrote the pattern, for the round, and for a cowl/tube.

Dropped the long bar, replaced it with 4 plain purl stitches. So multiples of 13. 10 would be 130, but I am dropping to a 4mm as well, so I’ll do 143 and see what it gets me. The chart is really six sets of four, where the yo and the ssk or k2tog float in little streams, very simple once it’s charted, bloody impossible to follow (for me) from Barbara Walter’s original!

20090409

Frogged the whole thing, starting over on smaller needles.

20090412

Finally getting some traction on this. I’ve frogged it four times now!

Cast on 144, slipped the last cast on stitch to the left needle, first stitch was k2tog.

Stitch markers every 13 stitches. I removed part of the pattern and left four purl stitches between the waves.

Changed needles to 3.5mm. MUCH better. I’m a little concerned about getting it over a head, but it’s fitting loosely on the 60cm circular, so theoretically that’ll fit over the recipient’s 57.5cm head. Emphasis on loosely. I should look into whether silk grows in only one direction or if it grows in both.

20090415

Finished the first repeat at the guild last night, very smooth. It’s starting to look like something! Hopefully another full repeat or more is possible. I may need another skein.

20090417

As it turns out, it takes about 1g of silk yarn to do a round (a little less) so 48 rows, plus cast on, plus a little ease (plain rows), makes it 53 rows out of 50g of silk.

I hope it’s long enough, we’ll see when it’s blocked I guess! I wonder if you can reclaim silk easily, heh.

20090418

It’s blocking now, but I may resoak it and let it try compressed like ribbing, we’ll see. Pretty!