Fall Preview!

Last time I posted I promised some pictures of designs from the Fall issue. As it turned out I had to put aside the Orenburg shawl (that chart is too large for travelling) and go on the road to rendezvous with some of the samples on their way from Germany to a Trunk Show here in the US.

I joined up with Margery and the designs and we had a photo op.

First up is a soft, wonderfully drapey, dark gray stole. With all the beautiful sweaters and coats parading through the pages, you could easily miss it in the magazine. Just a stole. But what a glamorous, versatile accessory for Fall! Here's a view in silhouette:

Also in accessories, I got a closer look at this lovely cowl. It's sparkly and light and the detail of ribbons tied into the yarn is not so easy to see in the long shot from the magazine.

I could see it worn in a number of dramatic, inventive ways. It's wider than a scarf, so you could wear it like a hood, twine it like a scarf or drape it like a shawl. It will knit up quickly without a lot of technical details, the yarn will do most of the work for you and people will be very impressed when they find out you made it!








Stay tuned, the next installment will be: Coats.

Now that I'm back home, I'm reunited with the Orenburg shawl and I'm so glad I've color coded my stitch markers. The row counters tell me which row I'm on, but the design repetitions have gone out of my head. It was much easier knitting through a row to have the colors of the markers change when the lace repeat changes to remind me what I'm doing.

I've used small hair ties, they're readily available, come in a multitude of colors and one package contains enough for several projects at once. Here's how I organized them: the red one on the right and the green one on the left separate the border stitches and tell me which side is which: red for right. The orange markers mark the "pine cone" repeats around the outside of the triangle, and the blue markers the diamond shapes in the center. Not only do they tell me which motif goes where, they make it easy to find those 1-3 stitches of patterning on wrong side rows, tell where the missing yarn over is when I drop one and figure out (in case I forget to turn the row counters) where I am by counting the stitches in between motifs, since they change every other row.

Why do I need to many mnemonic devices? That's another story altogether.

Lace on the Bias

Good news! All the patterns from the "Fascinating Lace" workshop are now available at verenaknitting.com. If you are already a subscriber you'll find them all, for free, by clicking your Bonus Patterns link. They are also available for individual sale in our Pattern Shop.

I've been neglecting the Orenburg Shawl to knit up a swatch in answer to a question in our Forums. Since it relates directly to lace I've decided to share the results with everyone.

The pattern is Moody Blue from our Summer 2009 issue. It's an all over lace pattern and the decreases were causing the fabric to slant dramatically on one side:

I knit, frogged and re-knit several times, trying out different tactics for working the decreases and the result was always the same. I then decided to work the pattern without any decreases to see what that looked like and I got the smaller swatch below:

Both edges slant at almost the same angle. So even though the straight right edge of the decreased swatch seemed like a regular selvadge it was clearly different than the right edge of the un-decreased pattern. The left edge is slanted but not as dramatically as the one with the decreases in it.

Further research reveals that this is the result of all the decreases being worked in the same direction, in this case a PSSO. Seams will keep a garment knit in an all-over lace pattern that tends to bias like this from twisting around. I would be careful to pin the seams together and make sure that the pieces are properly matched up on both sides before sewing.

While we're here, some general tips for working decreases in all over lace patterns seem in order. The pattern here includes instructions for Full Fashion decreases, which can be worked more easily by keeping the first and last few stitches in stockinette and working the decreases in those. Alternatively, since the wrong side rows are knit across in purls, working the decreases on that side will prevent confusion with the yarn over/decreases of the stitch pattern itself. I tried several ways, in one case eliminating a yarn over from the stitch pattern rather than working two decreases and a yarn over right at the edge. This is a perfectly legal way to work a decrease in lace provided you can keep track of what you are doing well enough to maintain the pattern itself and make the decreases correctly.

Stay tuned for our regularly scheduled programming: More adventures in Orenburg Lace.

Enmeshed in Lace

This past weekend, subscribers to our free Newsletter were treated to a flip book of the lace patterns from our "Fascinating Lace" workshop . I know many people have been looking for these patterns and we promised to have them up on the site. Technical difficulties have delayed our putting them there, so for those of you who haven't subscribed to the Newsletter (did I mention it's free? You never know what goodies will appear in your inbox with this one!) I'm posting a link to the Flip Book, where you can see the designs. The patterns will be available shortly on our website.

If you're planning on knitting any of them, please find us in our Lace KAL on Ravelry. There's no time limits or pressure, just support and camaraderie. I'm forging ahead with the Orenburg Shawl (more on that soon...) but you're welcome to knit any of the many lace patterns in our spectacular Summer Issue. See you there!

Wow, that first step is a doozy! Important safety tip: Pay careful attention to the difference between our standard "K2Tog" symbol, a right triangle in the lower right of the square (seen here next to the circles representing yarn overs) and the design specific symbol (seen as the last stitch in the second row from the bottom.) This is also a right triangle in the lower right of the square, but it is enclosed within another square inside the block. It's easy to see at this magnification, but easy to miss in the heat of knitting!

This yarn is like knitting with a filament of cloud. Of course the color reinforces that impression, but I'm sure it would be just as heavenly in any color you can get your hands on.

Stay tuned for more adventures in Orenburg lace. I'm looking at working 3 charts simultaneously for the next several hundred rows, so I'm off to buy some more row counters.

The Summer of Lace

I can't wait to start knitting this shawl. I've always been fascinated with Orenburg lace, but never gotten up the gumption to knit anything. Finally, a perfect Lace storm seems to be brewing around me: the structure is unlike anything I've knit before, the charts are daunting, the yarn, Filatura di Crosa Superior, is exquisite. I'll be documenting my adventure with this lovely pattern in this space and sharing ongoing comments in the LACE KAL in the Verena Group on Ravelry. I hope some of you will join me in knitting this wonderful pattern, or any of the other lace patterns from Verena.

I know that many of you have been looking for the patterns featured in our Fascinating Lace Workshop. They will be available in the Subscriber Bonus area on our website by this weekend.

Tropicalismo! Summer Pattern Preview

Tropicalismo!

Summer's blown into the Northeast early with a blast of tropical air. The calendar says it's two months until the solstice, but the thermometer has another idea. Time to plan your summer projects! I thought I'd enable by offering a peek at some of what Verena's got in store for our Summer issue.

 Photographed in beautiful Tulum, Mexico, on the Mayan Riveria, the relaxed spirit of the tropics prevails.

Lace or color, casual or composed, this is just a glimpse of what's coming in our next issue.

Late breaking news, the printed pattern section is missing the chart for pattern #27, Oahu, seen below. The chart will be available in the errata section, found in the "Magazine" menu on our home page.

Russian Join

Hello! It's good to be back, after a considerable hiatus while we worked out our new production schedule. I hope everyone is enjoying the new expanded Verena. We are now able to present many more of the patterns from the German edition in a larger format.

The shipping glitch seems to have been worked out and people are getting their Spring 2010 issues and getting busy planning Spring knitting projects. Perhaps a splurge with a tax return? As the weather warms up, those of us who cannot contemplate 6 months without knitting tend to put away the bulky yarns and start thinking about lace. We had a question in the forums about how to weave in ends in a lace pattern, so I thought I would discuss some of the options here since we have so many lace patterns in the Spring issue and more to follow in Summer. By the way, we just finished our shoot for the Summer issue in majestic Tulum, Mexico a few weeks ago, Elle magazine following close on our heels with a summer fashion shoot. I can't wait to see the pictures.

But I was talking about lace and what to do with the ends of the yarn when you don't have a skein long enough to knit an entire garment. If you've already completed the knitting and have ends to weave in, keep to the thicker areas of the pattern and leave some ease as you go, since you'll stretch the lace when you block it. Leave a long tail, you'll notice it's much shorter after blocking. Weave it in a bit more after blocking just for good measure and trim. If you're knitting with something that felts, there is always the tried and true graft, or spit splice. But if you're knitting in a light, summery cotton or rayon, what can you do?

A Russian Join is the answer here. As you come to the end of a ball, thread the end of your yarn through an embroidery needle about the same thickness, or less, as your yarn, leaving a fairly short tail. Take your needle and go through the yarn loosening the plies, and weaving back through for a couple of inches.

Pull your needle through the yarn, leaving a small loop where it doubles back on itself. Pull the end all the way through and tug on the ends to smooth out the doubled area.

Be sure to keep the loop on the end open.

Thread the end of your incoming ball onto the needle and through the loop you just made at the end of the outgoing yarn.

Repeat the same procedure with the end of the new ball of yarn.

Smooth out the yarn by tugging gently on the ends to close up the loops.Trim the ends on the diagonal so they blend better.

  

This may sound fidgety and complicated, but it's one of those things that is far worse in the describing than it is in the doing. The yarn I used here is Rowan Classic Siena, fingering weight mercerized cotton. In a springier yarn the doubled area would be even less visible. The join is very strong, all but invisible once knitted and well worth the effort for continuous knitting of non-animal fibers with no ends to weave in. Try it next time you have to join a new yarn and let me know how it goes!

We would like to correct the misspelling of Muench on the Resource page in our Spring issue. They carry many of the lovely buttons featured in our button article. Visit their website, http://www.muenchyarns.com/ for yarn, buttons and more.

If you haven't yet subscribed to Margery's newsletter I encourage you to do so. She started Knitbits for Berroco back in the day, which is now one of the most widely read newsletters in knitting. She recently visited the craft show in Handarbeit, found Verena to be the most widely read knitting magazine in Europe and generally got to see things from the other side of the water.