On Needles

* Old Shale Baby Blanket: Ravelry Project Link, Free Pattern

* German Stockings: Ravelry Project Link, Pattern Link

* Cabled Fingerless Gloves: Own design, somewhat stalled

* Rag Scarf Number Two: Still getting the fiber combination right

* Raglan Cardigan for Vigo: Totally stalled

Lace

I've been thinking about knitting the famous Hemlock Ring Blanket for a long time, but I want to try some other lace patterns first, so I can learn how to read the lace charts and figure a few things out ahead of time. The blanket is basically a lace doily pattern that has been adapted to be knit on much larger needles with much fatter yarn.

My first experiment is a baby blanket that I made for Justine's daughter Sienna. The pattern comes from Knit Wiki and is called Beadspread (Counterpane with Leaves). You're supposed to knit an ungodly number of triangles and then SEW them all together (the horror). I used fat needles and yarn and made four triangles to create one large square, big enough for a baby blanket.



I learned a lot of things about lace knitting from this project. Number one, don't try to drink alcohol and knit lace patterns. Also, after every pattern row, count them stitches and make sure you didn't miss a yarn over somewhere. That can also be done while you're knitting the plain row. It's easy to pick up a yarn over. If you make a mistake, you have to frog a little. Tough luck. Don't try to finnagle.