I thought it would never happen to me!

I have been fairly resolute in my belief that I would never be sucked into two things in knitting...First, knitting socks--my reason for this is that I don't like my socks to be colorful, so it would simply be wasteful of me to spend time on something I would never enjoy. Second is the toothpick and dental floss lace knitting that I am certain is the cause of many a crowsfoot and adoption of reading glasses, as well as pointy old lady fingers and hysterical crying fits.

Well...I'm gettin' old...and aparently brave. I'm now knitting a lace-weight scarf in Knit Pick's Alpaca Cloud. I bought the yarn a long time ago, thinking I would strand it with other yarns in making things. It has patiently waited in my stash for a project to participate in since last fall and since I never ran across that project I was pretty much chalking it up as another ball of stitch markers and lifelines.

Flash to a few weeks ago when the Spring Interweave Knits magazine came out. I flipped through it, admiring several of the projects, but not especially in love with any of them. I noticed a lace scarf that I commented to a friend on, saying that you couldn't really see the pattern very well in the pictures they had posted.



A week or two went by, and on Easter Sunday I found myself stranded in Evanston with no plans for a few more hours, so I went to hang out at Barnes & Noble. I picked up the magazine again and flipped through it. I stopped short on the page with the Trellis scarf, and remembered a post on Flickr with a picture of a Trellis scarf that I had admired...then I realized that the pattern called for one ball of Knit Pick's Alpaca Cloud. The same Alpaca Cloud that I had six balls of slumbering away in my stash. It called for size 5 needles, which I have, and wasn't nearly as intimidating as some of the size 0's I had seen before. Now I'm not one to often use the EXACT same yarn as the pattern calls for, but what was this? Fate? Coincidence? a seven dollar magazine to use up only one four dollar ball of yarn? ...yup, it was Perfect!

So I bought the magazine (and a collection of stories and poems by Poe) and headed off for the evening.

On Tuesday morning I cast on with my new project, and by 6:30PM I knew I was going to be late to Stich n'Bitch because I had been too caught up in my knitting!

I'm still too chart dependant to work in most places with distractions and talking, and am so focused that I notice myself short on breath by the end of a row (59 stitches is too long to hold your breath for). But I must admit I find the results fascinating and addictive. I love that it just looks like a jumble until you stretch it out. I love that I've been able to fix mistakes without crying. I love the little lifelines and the fact that I can fit my entire project in a sandwich baggie.

I'm a lace knitter.

Unstretched














...

And through the magic of stetching (and hopefully blocking)