No, I’m not knitting a pom pom garland, I’m knitting Garland, the beautiful sweater from the cover of the latest issue of pompom!
I’m using Drops Alpaca Silk, a mix of brushed alpaca and mulberry silk, in the colour Heather (#08). It’s been a really nice yarn to work with so far, and for a mohair like yarn, it’s also quite easy to unravel (ask me how I know!).
It’s been more than two months since I started working on the sweater and I’m finally reaching the end of the body. The sweater itself is really easy (a lot of stockinette in the round, with no increases and hardly any decreases), but the five rows of lace of the bottom gave me the hardest time! If you plan on knitting this sweater, I strongly recommend placing a stitch marker between every repeat of the lace pattern. Yes, that’s about forty stitch markers, one every seven stitches if I remember correctly, but if I had placed them from the beginning of the lace I would have saved myself a lot of tears, time and frustration! Only after frogging the lace rows for at least the fifth time did I place the markers, and even though I still had to frog the lace a few times, I don’t think I would have been able to complete it without them.
After spending so much time on so few rows, I had kind of lost the motivation to work on the sweater, which is why it’s been taking me so long. Also, after all my efforts, the lace looks weird: I don’t really see the cute flower motif I’m supposed to see there… I’m hoping this will change after blocking, especially since I’m quite sure I followed the chart correctly! Anyway, there was no way I was going to frog the lace AGAIN, even if I did mess something up!
And one row here, one row there, the body is almost finished, which gives me a new motivation! Though I kind of fear the beginning of the sleeves, which feature the dreaded lace pattern again!
Rue des Renards 
Very pretty! I know what you mean about marking the lace repeats or facing doom. I learnt that a few times the hard way! It’s worth investing in a bucketload of stitch markers to avoid the pain. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Thank you!
And I won’t forget the stitch markers when I reach the sleeve lace!
Oh my goodness…but it is so pretty :0)
Well, let’s hope it turns out at cute as the original!
That colour – love it! I bet after blocking the mysteries of the lace will be revealed.
When I pull on the knitting to try and see what it will look like after blocking, it does look like flowers, but flowers with some tiny petals and some huge ones. We’ll see!
I really like what you’re doing. Found you on ” thread and needles” . Needlenaute af the month, congrats. Alpaca silk is such a lovely yarn. Pompom, unknown to me, but i’ll have a look.
Thank you so much! 🙂
Pingback: Winter Heather | Rue des Renards