Done several weeks ago, and yes, I still am just that bad at updating. I have a hat done, I have two sets of fingerless gloves made and sent out, I have two sets of socks and a cardigan on the needles, I have new needles and new yarn. All things that I wanted to post about and then just utterly failed to.

Still, back on topic.

This is the second of the Knitting Delight/ Mystery Knit-Alongs I’ve done (via the yahoogroup). The first was the Way of Life stole, which was pretty different in structure and experience.

The Lady Jane had a mystery shape to it, which ended up being a V (rather than the usual rectaangle, triangle or half-circle). The pattern of the lace itself, however, was a lot more simple. It was basically just the edging, so there was a lot more repetition than with the Way of Life.

I was also using a very different yarn, the Oxford Kitchens lace-weight. It’s like knitting with scrunchy floss, only soft and beautiful. It’s also a reminder of how much variation there is in lace weight, because the last one (varigated merino, Lisa Souza) was so much thicker. The Oxford Kitchens is mostly BFL with a bit of nylon and I have mixed feelings on whether it was the irght yarn for this. I love the way the slightly scrunchy yarn looks, especially on the stocking, but I do wonder if I’d have been better off knitting with something more solid, to show off the lace.

I also had to change needles to lacepoints because the yarn really needed it. With regular addis, I might as well have been kitting with chopsticks. The ends were just too thick to pick up the yarn, which wasn’t such a problem with the thicker Lisa Souza.

By the end, it was one of those projects where the recipient (my mum, benefiting from Mothering Sunday falling the week after I’d finished it and the Way of Life having ended up with an honourary-aunt/mum’s best friend for Christmas) liked it more than I did. I was mostly happy to see it done, by that point. I’m glad I did it, but I probably wouldn’t have finished it, if it wasn’t for the KAL push.

I still have half a skein of the lace yarn, so I need a project that will take that up next.

Finished! Done, and finished in good time (week of the final clue). I think this way of working, to sectional deadline, is very helpful for me in terms of getting things done. It was possible to catch up on a lazy week in the next week, and do that week’s clue as well. And the advantage of width-ways shawls is that at least there aren’t so many rows.

I’ll probably pick up something by the designer again. Very decorative, complicated lace pattern, but still manageable to knit as long as you can track a chart.