While I spent much of my time catching up at work after being on vacation for a week, I managed to complete Gilet Lace.

Unlike my last sweater project, I have no remorseful feelings about choosing this pattern. I found the pattern easy to follow and written with no mistakes. Well, actually there is one small mistake; I had to double the length of the crocheted cord. Bergereine yarn is easy to work as long as it isn’t ripped out too often. Best of all, the sweater fits well.

So what’s on the sweater project horizon? I’ll start to concentrate on spinning the fiber for the Spin-Off sweater but should also get more serious about making a sweater for my husband. I have a couple of Alice Starmore patterns that he’s approved and just need to choose one.

Lara?

This week I came across Wendy’s post about Debbie Bliss’ Lara pattern and briefly toyed with the idea of making this sweater. It’s a simple but elegant design.

Tuesday night, I made a special trip to Hilltop to check out the pattern book, Silk Alpaca. After flipping through it, I began to realize that I shouldn’t waste $17 on this book since Lara is the only design that I liked. Besides, It’s such a simple design that it couldn’t be too difficult to knock off from the picture. Making my own version makes much more sense because I also wasn’t too thrilled with the thickness of Silk Alpaca ( 10 inches = 18 stitches). Despite only having one design that I liked, I might have purchased the book if it didn’t have one huge glaring problem – no schemas of the sweater pieces.

Although Toby does not have front claws, he sure knows how to dig his back claws into any knitted piece that happens to be lying within his reach. Other then this little annoying habit, he tends to respect the fact that my knitting tools and yarn are not his toys.

This piece was suppose to be the back to the Gilet Lace sweater but after I spread it out using blocking wires and shooed the cat away, I realized it turned out too big. I tried incorporating a small deviated from the pattern by replacing two repeats of the lace pattern on the center back with stockinette stitch. Well my calculations for this change were wrong so I’ve ripped out a week’s worth of work and started again with more accurate calculations. I also plan to monitor the width as I knit so I don’t make the same mistake again.

We have just enough green grass under our mimosa tree to spread out the left sleeve of gilet lace for a photograph. As usual, the rest of the grass is suffering through the summer waiting for rain.

This weekend I dropped by Full Circle to check out their current stock. I’m always amazed at the diverse range of yarns that this small traditional yarn store carries. While it’s not a trendy place, it’s certainly worth a trip if you’re looking for brands that you don’t see in other stores around Seattle. They even offer a couple of Phildar lines.

While examining each section of yarn in the shop, I came across Bomull by Marks & Kattens. It’s the long lost identical twin of Bergereine. This yarn would make a great substitute for Bergereine, especially since it comes in a slightly larger array of rich colors.

Finally, one sleeve is finished and yes it is suppose have that odd shape on the top. The square on the top right is one half of the shoulder back and the triangle on the top left is the front left shoulder.

Click on the photo for a closer view.

I would have gotten this done last week but upon finishing the last few rows I noticed that I had strayed from the stitch pattern just as I started the shoulder portion. Although most people wouldn’t have noticed the mistake, I couldn’t live with it. The whole shoulder piece was ripped out and reknitted.
I’ve learned that the most important thing to remember when knitting large lace pieces is to stop fairly frequently to inspect your work. Doing so might minimize the amount of time spent ripping out hours of hard work.

I feel like it’s all down hill from here, so hopefully I’ll get it done within the next couple of weeks.

I haven’t abandoned Gilet Lace; it has just slowed down a bit since the next two pieces (sleeves) are all lace. Progress has been slower than normal over the past few days due to bouts of mindless knitting, ending in several rows being ripped out because of forgotten yarn overs. This pattern is almost etched in my mind so; I’ve totally abandoned the chart. The other day a fellow bus rider complimented my work mentioning that it looked like a difficult lace pattern and was surprised that I wasn’t following a chart. I guess she didn’t realize that most of the knitting consisted of a stitch pattern repeated a zillion times.

If you click on the picture you’ll see a close-up of the rather simple lace pattern. In a previous post I mentioned it includes right and left crossed stitches and posted a few pictures on how to work them. I however neglected to add a photo of what the end results look like. Well here’s a “Where’s Waldo?” moment. The crossed stitches are on either side of the reverse stockinette triangle patterns, just after/ before the yarn overs (holes). I have a vague memory of doing crossed stitches while working on a Nancy Bush sock pattern.

(a) waistcoat, N Am: vest; (b) g. de sauvetage, life jacket; g. d’armes, fenching jacket; (c) g. (de corps, de peau de dessous), vest, singlet, N Am: undershirt; (d) (woman’s) cardigan. – Harrap’s New Collegiate French and English Dictionary

Oh, so that’s what gilet means in English. I translated the instructions but neglected to translate the title.

Yep, this one is turning out to be a quick one. The most challenging aspects have been acquiring the yarn, translating the pattern and dealing with the messy half used yarn balls.

Figuring out how to cross two stitches was a bit tricky. While I understood the word-for-word translation of this stitch, I wasn’t familiar with the technique. Here’s how I ended up working these stitches after referring to several English knitting books.

Crossing Stitches

(enlarge any photo by clicking on it)

2 maille croisées à droite / cross 2 stitches right –

Knit into the second stitch on the left needle but don’t slip it off the left needle.

Knit into the first stitch on the left needle and then let both stitches slip off the left needle. In the photo on the bottom right, the two stitches on the left needle will be dropped off.

2 maille croisées à gauche / cross 2 stitches left –

Knit into the back loop of the second stitch on the left needle but don’t slip it off the left needle.

Knit into the back loop of the first stitch on the left needle and then let both stitches slip off the left needle. In the photo on the bottom right, the two stitches on the left needle will be dropped off.

Here’s what I accomplished over the weekend while on a car trip to the other side of the mountains. Hopefully it will get more interesting when I start the sleeves. The main body pieces are simple rectangles, minus a small triangle on the upper edges. The sleeves are a little more complicated since they extend over the shoulders to form the collar and upper back.

The curled edges in the photo got me thinking about blocking. To be honest, I’m not serious about blocking. I usually just lightly steam any curled edges and move straight to sewing. However, this time I’m going to try using a set of blocking wires that I learned about a couple of months ago while reading Marilyn’s blog.