OK… I’ve teased you long enough ……

I’ll tell you about my next project……

In fact I have two projects started!! 😯

Normally I like to keep just one WIP on the go as you know, but this next project is what I promised when I signed off my last post about Orford– really hard and slowing me down!

Difficult pattern + decorating the bedroom + building new flatpack wardrobes + being a sick girl taking sausage sized antibiotics = very slow progress!
Here’s the book picture…

It’s Eveleen from Rowan 40 by Lois Daykin.

This is the cover of Rowan 40 (I can’t remember which book is which from the numbers so I’m assuming you all have that trouble too!!)

When I got Rowan 40 – I remember looking at this one and thinking, “hmm flowery intarsia and not much else. I really won’t be knitting that!” Then, when I did my wonderful finishing course
at John Lewis, I saw the garment made up. It was fabulous! I bought the yarn then and there with my 10% discount voucher.

What the picture shows badly (as is often the case with Rowan’s photography) is the detail and the lace pattern. Yep, there is a lace pattern from the bust down. There are also bands of Lurex Shimmer (very sparkly yarn for those who haven’t memorised the entire Rowan range) at the cast on edges, around the neck and along the bust line either side of a ribbon detail. The intarsia is a clever mixture of textures too. Three colours of fuzzy Kidsilk Haze and the same 3 colours (or as close as you could hope to get) in matt textured Rowan 4 ply Soft.

So why is it so hard?

Have a look at this…(photographed against my Petunias!)

The lace pattern is scallop shells with a lacy “arc” pattern in between with the stitches “lashed” together to bunch them at the meeting point of the scallopy ribs.

This one might show the scallops better…

See the Lurex shimmer edging too? Well actually I used Twilley’s goldfingering as Lurex Shimmer has been discontinued – I’m assured this is a perfect substitute.

Casting on and straight into lace using a black sparkly yarn was not a smart choice. I had no idea what the stitches were doing and had to rely on frantic counting and holding my breath until the end of the row – then doing a little dance when I had the right number of stitches at the end of the row! 🙂

The pattern repeat is 14 rows. I had to count, tink and swear through every one of them without a clue if the stitches were falling in the right place – a close-up of the stitch detail would have helped SOOOOOOOOoooo much Rowan! Once I’d bludgeoned my way through one repeat the pattern has started to make a little sense. I’m starting to see little “phrases” of stitches in the pattern and can look away from the book occasionally now. Hopefully after a couple more pattern repeats I’ll be seeing whole sentences and be able to whizz through whole rows without looking at the book – I can dream!

After criticising Rowan’s photography, I had a hard time photographing this! Here’s just one more close up…

And my second project – that’s a really easy one for when I can’t face Eveleen….I’ll tell you about that next time!