Sunday 28 December 2014

Chablis

November 2014

The yarn I used for this project first made it into my stash five years ago, and since then I’ve planned about five different projects for it. Some of my favourite hand knitted sweaters are in kidsilk haze (particularly Shirley and Lucetta) and I have a copy of Rowan Studio 12 in my library, which has some lovely kidsilk haze patterns in it. Then I stumbled upon Parisian Nights, dithered between this and Sauvingnon for a while, but then finally cast on Chablis about a year ago.
 


I chose the second size up - which gives me a little bit less positive ease than the design perhaps intended - because I’ve noticed a tendency among my mohair hand knits to hang a little loose after a couple of wears, and they seem to resist blocking back into shape. I’m pretty happy with the way this fits, though. I think any baggier would be less flattering.


I made this in one piece to the armholes and knitted the sleeves in the round on a small circular. It was lucky that they were wide enough to allow this, because sewing up with mohair isn’t much fun. For the little bit of seaming I did do, I found a bit of cotton in a similar colour to the mohair and used that instead.

This was my first attempt at beading, and I was dreading the stringing the beads onto the yarn part. Turns out that it doesn’t take all that long after all, and knitting them into the lace panels was really good fun. I’m definitely planning on knitting more beaded stuff soon.


There was something of a delay to this project, because my first attempt came out a little too short in the body. In the end I just cut into it (just above the moss stitch band which trims the bottom hem) and unravelled a bit to get live stitches back onto the needle. It was an enormous faff, because the mohair is so very keen on gripping to itself, but it did mean that I could just knit downwards until I had the length I wanted. Next time I make something bottom-up I’m going to use a provisional cast on and save myself the bother. If I remember.

Pattern: Chablis by Marie Wallin from Rowan Parisian Nights
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze in 582 Trance and Rowan Fine Lace in Cream
Amount: 6 Skeins of main colour, about 0.25 skeins of contrast colour
Needles: 2.25mm
Size: Small
On ravelry: here

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