Friday, June 17, 2011

I need a vote

I wrestle with some of my knitting ideas for quite a while before I jump into a project. My current opponent is the mossy/olivey green yarn on the top left of this photo. It is sport weight alpaca yarn that is soft and smooshy.


I bought all this yarny goodness at a a fiber festival last September. I already had a skein of it in grey from a year before that so I used it to make my grey Multnomah shawl, which I adore.


The yarn is alpaca and has a halo, fuzziness about it. One of the things I like about the Multnomah shawl is the simplicity of the pattern with the fuzzy yarn. It is just warm, soft and comforting. Not too flashy.

Now my dilemma with the green yarn is that I would like to do something a bit more fancy lace shawlish. There are three main contenders. Sorry I don't know how to get a good link for the first one and I don't want to show someone else's work without permission so I will just list a few and hopefully you will go look to see what I mean then come back to let me know what you think.

Evelyn Clarks' Prairie Rose Shawl from Knitter's Book of Wool
Evelyn Clarks' Swallowtail Lace Shawl from Interweave Press
Miriam Felton's Icarus Shawl from Interweave Press

I really like the idea of the Prairie Rose shawl since I am from the prairie, but I'm not sure this yarn is the best choice for that pattern. Will the fuzz haze the delicate pattern? Will the alpaca not block as well as sheep wool would? Will the alpaca weigh down and stretch out the pattern?     I don't know.

Same story for the swallowtail shawl. Are they really a match or just a divorce waiting to happen?

I worry a bit about the weight pulling down Icarus too. And the blocking may be an issue.

Maybe I should just knit another garter stitch shawl and see if I can find a nice lace edging that will play along?

So you can see what I am up against, any suggestions will be considered, but I reserve the right to plunge ahead and make all my own mistakes. Maybe I just need to swatch some and see what I like best. Naw that will never work!

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