New Wave, or Further Adventures in the Land of Pink

First, thank you for everyone who has queued or favorited my little sock thong... it is wonderfully fun to see those numbers go up and up!

Next, here we go back in time, to a design that just begs to be reworked again and again... gee, I hope that's the hallmark of a really great design and not the opposite!

This version of the Waves in the Square came about because I seem to be trying all of my patterns, one by one, in lace weight yarn. The latest lace yarn to tempt me is Misti Alpaca, just lately available in the Vancouver stores. It was a big surprise to me that I really wanted to try this corally pink, normally a stay-away color for moi. You will have to tell me what you think about the end result when you see the pics below...

Now for the story of the new version! This was to be a store sample for Three Bags Full, where I teach most of my classes and where I work one day a week. Francesca, owner and boss extraordinaire, allows us shop girls to knit during times when the store is slow, and this has been my shop project of choice for a couple of weeks now. Since I haven't been working on it at home, having multiple deadline projects to do there, it has been sort of dragging on and on, and the knitting hasn't been adding up to what I would have hoped, being tiny yarn and needles and all. So, not to make too fine a point of it, I stopped short: a little middy shawl that just covers the shoulders. And I added beads into the lace. And I love the results. Hehe.

Pictures and specs below.




Yarn: 1 skein of Misti Alpaca Lace in Color CD43, with which I used 3.25 mm Addi turbo lace needles and size 8/0 silver lined crystal beads. Finished size after blocking: 27" wide across the back, 12" long at center back.

I placed the beads with a crochet hook wherever a “yo, k1, yo” occurred in the pattern, on the k1 stitch. I followed the pattern up to row 86, after which I skipped to row 168 with the following changes:

Row 168 had 321 stitches, not 561.
Row 170 had 323 stitches, not 563.
I ended with 324 stitches, increasing 1 st as the pattern says to do for row 179.
The beaded picot edging was done exactly as it says to do in the pattern.

Just a note about that: In the beaded picot instructions, I omitted the part about transferring the last bound off stitch to the left needle before casting on the 2 additional stitches. I know most of you will have the sense to do this anyway, but I must apologize to anyone who has been confused and/or unable to follow these instructions because of my omission.

The instruction paragraph should read:

*CO 2 sts using knitted-on cast on method, place bead on last st made with small crochet hook, BO 6 sts. Transfer last stitch on right needle to left needle. Repeat from * across row. End with picot, then pick up and knit 1 st at bottom corner of picot, BO 1 st. Cut yarn and draw through loop.

I think this version may be an ideal summer lace item... drop me a line and let me know if you agree.


Well, at least somebody is happy... my blocking gremlin, Mooshie, gets this way every time I block something!

Happy summer lace knitting, everyone...