I haven't photographed my (slow) progress yet but I am totally digging it in full knitster geek way.
It has been awhile since I've embarked on something truly new and challenging*. While I have knit lace before (an entire blanket in lace pieces and the Perfect Pie Shawl from Weekend Knitting) and I just worked something very simple in laceweight mohair, I have never knit a complicated lace project on laceweight mohair. So I thought I would take on the challenge.
I cannot say enough about how awesome the support of over 4,000 knitters working on the same project at (relatively) the same pace is. I went to Patricia's Yarns in Hoboken to get some laceweight for the project and she suggested Rowan Kidsilk Haze. Or, rather, dangled it in front of me like a snake charmer and I was powerless to its influence despite the hefty pricetag.
To the right is a photo of Macy, the Official Spokesdog of the Totally Knitting Universe at Patricia's Yarns. They were very hospitable to yarn loving Shih Tzus who keep their paws off the merch. Macy helped another customer pick a color of yarn the last time I took her over there.
Then I brought it home and started feeling really insecure about the yarn choice. First of all, I have never had a lace project that did not specify the needle size. The ball band and the pattern gave a range of needle sizes, so I didn't even know where to start. Plus, I picked a color other than the recommended black, white or shades thereof. When I start getting insecure it eats at me and definitely puts a damper on the excitement of beginning something new.
So I did a quick search of the messages in the Yahoo group and lo and behold, not only had this question been asked by someone "Omigod I am using Rowan Kidsilk Haze and I don't know what needle size to use! OMG help!" but it had been answered! By list members and the pattern designer, who suggested size 7 needles and assured that it would work.
What a relief!
In addition to that, I am completely loving the resource links! Someone posted a video tutorial on how to do the crochet hook bead adding technique. So much easier than I thought!
Someone posted a link to a description of how to add a lifeline!
Someone posted a link to how to correct a lost yarnover!
And even though I haven't yet needed to add a new ball, I learned about the Russian Join technique.
Clearly I love to learn new things. For the mystery stole, however, I do need to remember not to bring it to my knitting group. My first missed yarn over on Tuesday night requires a bit of surgery.
*As lawyers, when Brian and I first began peeking under the skirt of the great monster that is the knitting universe, we wanted to learn as much as possible and mount our knitting challenges in quick succession. Now that the initial fires have cooled a bit, I had to scale back my thirst for extremely challenging knitting because it is hard to not screw up hard knitting when you don't devote huge chunks of time to it.
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