Good lace hunting

The Cascade 220 Paints socks are finished and have been worn. I’m very happy to report that they do not stretch out of shape and are comfortable throughout the day.

Yarn is Cascade 220 Paints; color 9848 (blues).

In fact, I’m enjoying the socks so much that I bought another skein yesterday at Shuttle, Spindles, & Skeins in Boulder. I drove there for my son’s graduation from CU Boulder—a red letter day.

Yarn is Cascade 220 Paints; color 9930 (greens).

On to the Surplice Lace Top. Boy, did I have difficulty getting gauge!  I ended up with size 2.5 and size 4 needles and knitting very tightly with them to achieve gauge. I was not excited about knitting a sweater with small needles.

Surplice Lace Top from Nashua Handknits Collection No. 4.

Then I began knitting the lace pattern and didn’t like it. What can I say? It just wasn’t fun, and knitting must be fun (most of the time anyway).

So I looked through Barbara Walker’s pattern books for other lace patterns and began one. But I didn’t like actually knitting that lace pattern too well, and the needle size (6) seemed too large for the lace pattern and the yarn.

 (the frogging begins)

As I kept thumbing through the current IK, I eyed that lace pattern in the Apres Surf Hoodie (p. 49) and decided to try it.

Yarn is Rowan Calmer; color 476.

Oh yeah, that did the trick. I went down to size 5 needles and am thoroughly enjoying knitting this lace pattern and the way it looks. I had to do some recalculating because I’m using size 5 needles and lace with shorter repeats than the Surplice Lace Top pattern calls for.

But no worries. After the Tuscany shawl, I’m happy to be knitting something with rows that are a reasonable length again. And the watermelon color of the Rowan Calmer is cheerful.