Lace knitting is addictive. Of course it may also cause me to go blind, but it’ll be lots of fun in the process. Working on Kiri is certainly showing me all the places in my house that lack appropriate lighting. I got up this morning and camped out in the library because there are no curtains in there and the sun was streaming in. Amazingly, I could actually see what I was doing – plus the detail of the pattern came through beautifully, backlit with the sun. Think I could arrange to have that room filled with sunbeams 24 hours a day? The cats would appreciate it at least, since they are, after all, solar powered (based on the number of hours they spent sprawled out in sunbeams, ‘recharging their solar cells’. Grin).
I’ve got over 200 stitches on the needles now and am not even done with one skein of Alpaca Cloud. That laceweight stuff just goes on forever and ever and ever…sheesh. I am thinking maybe I should set the Kiri shawl aside for now and focus on the cabled afghan, since the shawl – now that I have memorized the pattern – is an extremely tiny and portable project, capable of being smashed into small places (like the spare room in my purse), whereas the afghan is, well, a wee bit bulky.
This afternoon I sat down with my new knitting machine, and my lovely new folding table (bought specifically for this purpose) and walked myself through the directions. The first time I tried this (last weekend) it didn’t work so well, but this time I feel like I got the hang of it. I dropped a few stitches on the ends, and I think I may just have to figure out how to work the tension holders on the sides to prevent that in the future. But I was able to pick the stitches back up again, and it worked out.
With all the problems I had with Soleil, I am still enamored of the pattern. And I am now pondering whether I could actually do Soleil on my nifty new machine. It would take care of the problem I had with uneven tension. I know one can do lace on these things. I’d have to convert it to pieces instead of doing it in the round, but I think that might still work. Hmm. If nothing else, I can see that I’m going to be having fun playing with this thing over the next few months (between making completely impractical shawls out of wispy yarn that I will never wear, and the never-ending pile of Christmas present afghans), and maybe I’ll even end up making something useful (like parts of a sweater, or even a vest) in the process.
On a completely unrelated note, surely I cannot be the only one who, eying a cat with extremely thick fur that mats if you look at it cross-eyed, nas pondered the feltable qualities of yarn made from cat hair? I mean seriously, think about it. Not only would it apparently felt into a dense and impenetrable material, it would also have magical magnetic properties. As anyone who lives with cats knows, cat hair clings to EVERYTHING. Would yarn made from this substance also do the same?
This is, of course, assuming one can acquire enough fuzz from cats to make all this worthwhile. Because it is always the extra-furry cats with extra-matting fur who hate being combed the most. Sigh.