Wednesday, June 06, 2007

angora and lace - implacable enemies or a lovably mis-matched couple?

I've been away, and back, and away, and back, so sorry, no blogging! I was even in Nuremberg in the pouring rain, and tracked down the yarn shop five minutes after it closed. That was sad. I could even see the latest issue of Verena smiling at me through the shop windows. No luck. No Verena or Rebecca for me this year, it seems.

But buying knitting magazines is only going to do bad things to my stash, and my stash is for busting, this summer. So first up: remember this springy Langora in an autumnal colour?
the lambs of spring
I decided that a Rebecca pattern was the way t magic it into a summery garment:

Bolero from Rebecca 31

A wee shrug, because I didn't know the yardage of the yarn; it's 280 grammes, which seems quite little, but then again it's 14 balls, which is quite a lot. So I decided to err on the side of safety.

Rebecca bolero sleeve 1

Evidently I am wildly conservative, because that's two balls there, and it's the guts of a sleeve. I suspect the whole confection will take 7-8 balls, which will still leave me some stash to bust. I may even have to swap some of it... then again, can one ever have enough baby-soft chocolatey cardiganness?

The prevailing wisdom says that angora and lace don't mix, because the yarn is too fluffy to show any pattern. This is a pretty simple pattern; what do you think?

Angora lace, close up
The yarn is very unstretchy, presumably because the fibres are short, so I'm not sure how it will block... but it's all a brave adventure, right?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember that shrug! Last summer's Rebecca? It is yummy... as is the yarn *drool* If you have leftovers of a substantial enough quantity, I might be able to offer up some swapables. Let me know. I need to clear out some old stash.

Anonymous said...

The pattern definition is working for me!

la glitz said...

Thanks Sharon and Aileen.. and Aileen, I'll get back to you as soon as the shrug is done!

JustMe said...

Are you knitting from a German pattern? Cool! As for the new Verena, this is still the spring issue, they had trouble and didn't publish a summer issue.

la glitz said...

Yes, auf Deutsch! It's very educational. Why is it so hard to buy Rebecca and Verena? I went into the yarn shop in Erlangen, and the woman sneered at me that they might be available in OTHER parts of Germany, but not here...

JustMe said...

It's not hard to buy them here in yarn shops ... in Vienna, that is. Have you had a look at the Rebecca Website? You can order a lot of issues there, I've done it already. And I also buy here (they have Verena).