Last year I signed up for Nancy Marchant's brioche class at the last minute. I got really excited and bought Nancy's book, Leafy brioche, and quickly cast on for the prettiest of them all. And let me tell you, that project lasted for a good while.
What: Autumn lace / Nancy Marchant
How: Circular needle 4.5 mm
From: Madelinetosh Prairie + Manos del Uruguay Marina, 40 + 38 g
Sometimes knitting projects don't really work out the way you imagined. First of all, I don't like mohair so I made the shawl in lace weight merino singles. Big mistake! You see, this shawl requires the fluffyness of mohair to give it shape and structure. My lace yarn blocked like a lace yarn into this flowy light spiderweb. It isn't exactly a desired property with a scarf. Oh well, perhaps someone will like this paired up with a party dress.
Second, I thought this would be an interesting, entertaining knit. And sure, knitting leafy lace with brioche was those things - for the first two leaves. After that I realized, I'm going to be repeating the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again. ZzzzZZZzzz...
Third, I had one issue with the book. Nancy is a wizard when it comes to brioche and the book is one of the prettiest I've seen. But... I don't like that in the book she tells me, she always uses an Italian cast on for brioche, when she continues that I should just google it or look it up in her other brioche book. You see, I've purchased THIS book, not the other one.
I kept dragging out knitting the shawl. Sometimes I tried to advance the project by bringing only it with me to knit meetings so I wouldn't have a choice - only to end up with an infernal headache because it demanded so much concentrating.
One more "favorite" thing about this project were the centered decreases at the top of the leaves. They were worked such that you had to move the center st on a holder while doing the decreases and that was sooo much fun. (I like working my projects with as few needles as possible to keep everything simple and neat). After blocking, I noticed I had at some point decided to work the center decreases differently so I would need to joggle the center st. So now the decreases look different at different parts of the shawl. The nice things just keep piling up.
Oh well, you can't win them all. I worked the shawl until it measured 140 cm slightly stretched. After blocking it measures about 160 cm.
I love how honest you are about the whole experience. Though the process was challenging, the result is definitely worth it - what a stunning knit accessory - so elegant!
ReplyDeleteI often find it easier to write about projects that were the hardest. When everything flows, there isn't so much to add.
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