I said that without Purcey, everything seemed grey – I suppose it was a logical jump to knit something grey to match.

I’ve had some beautiful steely grey Rowan RYC Extra Fine Merino DK lurking in stash since it was discontinued in 2010. It was earmarked for this little  lovely, Lorelei,  from Tonia Barry from the Twist Collective.

Pattern picture of Lorelei

I’ve been knitting rather a lot (not really wanting to go anywhere or be sociable) so I’ve finished Lorelei in record time 🙂

Wanna see?

A finished grey Lorelei

The pattern called for 100% corn yarn and size 3.5mm needles – I suspect corn yarn is thick???). But, as the Stocking stitch tension was 23×30 rows, that looked like DK and 4mm to me!

I did try to get a shot with the buttons done up but I got photobombed by Ziggy…

I told you she was following me around 🙂

She got what she wanted – a quick cuddle!

I wanna be on the blog, Mum!

Here’s a better one of showing the lace without a cat in the way!

Beautiful lace pattern

And I guess I should show you the back too…

Love the lace panel at the bottom…

So were there any problems or was this plain sailing?

There were two not too serious errors but they were a little annoying.

Firstly, you see how on the body, the moss stitch hem flows perfectly into the pattern?

That’s just perfect!

I wasn’t at my best and was just following the pattern to the letter and didn’t notice the sleeves did this ugly jog in the moss stitch…

those bars shouldn’t be there!

The moss stitch rib should be started on row 3 for the sleeves (in the 34” chest at least!) if you want the pattern to match the front and back. At least I managed to get it the same for both sleeves and I don’t think anyone but me would notice.

The other niggle was the arithmetic for the button hole placement.  The stitch count for the buttonhole row on the right front is 18 stitches too few – looks like the 18 stitches on the collar were not allowed for. For my size it starts “Work 47 st”. Should be “Work 65 st….”. Again not the end of the world but annoying to pay for a pattern and then have to sit down and work it out yourself.

Apart from those two niggles it was an enjoyable knit. The (charted) lace was fun to do.The sizing and shaping all worked and it took my mind off missing Purcey for a while.

The only problem now is that I think it does look a tiny bit frumpy on me 🙁

Time to hit the Kim Hargreaves books and find something fabulous!