End of April 2025 progress report (Lavori 07/30 and the travel shawl)

Here's a recent progress pic of Lavori 07/30.  The early section of hex mesh is completely done and I'm in the stretch with no yarnovers.  I'm also in a short stretch within that where the stitch number will stay constant for a few pattern rounds.  The leaf ribs that are indicated by the V1V stitch sequence are turning into simple crossed stitches.  This section of doily is nothing but leaves!

I ran into the first chart error, in round 55.  There's a missing V symbol early in the pattern repeat.  It's very obvious when you get there.

The first partial ball of this white Clark's Big Ball #30 ran out in the 20s, not too long after I transitioned from dpns to a circular needle.  It was only a tiny amount and I'm glad it went as far as it did.  The next ball is close to done.  Will it make it to round 70?  I guess I'll find out.  I have at least two more partial balls before breaking into the first full ball (or presumably full, since these are all thrift store finds and there's no guarantee).  My guess is that I'll have knit about 200 to 250 ish yards of thread by the time this ball runs out.

So far it's been fun.  I'm on the 32" needle, so I suppose I can justify sneaking in a small doily every now and then while this is in progress, and even more so after I move to the 47" needle.

Here's a quick view of my travel project.  It's the Touchstone shawl from Ravelry, designed by Laura Aylor, worked in one of the Zauberball sock yarn gradients.  I've done the third set of eyelet blocks thanks to a bit of good travel knitting time this past weekend.  I have no idea if I'll have enough yarn to get all the way to the 5-block set as the pattern calls for, if I'll have lots of yarn left after that, or what.  I guess I'll find out!  The gauge is a little loose but it's still pretty reasonable.

I keep looking at my yarn stash and thinking about thicker yarns and non-lace.  So maybe I'll get inspired and cast on a few more projects.  I really do need more.

Lavori 07/30 progress report and a Brioche circular-knit cowl pattern (Brioche all the things!)

No photos, but I've finished round 52 of Lavori 07/30.  That's almost a quarter of the rounds, but, sigh, barely 5% of the doily. (1/4 of the rounds is 1/16 of the area.)  The first sections of hex mesh are closing up and the first set of leaves are growing.  There won't be any yarnovers at all from round 54 through round 70, though after that, I believe there will be yarnovers in all of the rest of the rounds.

With the hex mesh area closing up quickly, and the leaves growing quickly, the lace fabric is bending and distorting.  What fun!  It won't be fully visible until blocking.

These leaves are growing by making increases along the center line -- m1, k1, m1.  The chart uses the V symbol to indicate the increase where one picks up the running thread between two stitches and knits into the back of it.  I'm making these symmetric -- m1L, k1, m1R.  Will it matter?  I don't know.  At some point, after the leaves have reached their final width and the increases are finished, the center line will be denoted by 2 crossed stitches.

The edges of the leaves are outlined in twisted stitches.  I am not twisting them on the intermediate rounds.  They seem to be there to indicate a separation between each leaf, in this area where the leaves abut each other.  I decided to leave this as a fairly soft separation by only twisting on the pattern rounds.  Was that the right choice?  I don't know.  Later, at the base of the flower, there is a big block of twisted knits.  I will probably twist those to create a stronger rib-like line.

As the area of hex mesh shrinks, I'm using directional double-decreases -- the indicated SK2P for a left-leaning decrease and K3T for a right-leaning decrease.

Even without yarnovers for the next dozen or so rounds, I'll be kept busy with more make-1 increases, twisted knits, crossed stitches, and a big decrease (K5T) when the hex mesh area finally closes up for good.  When the yarnovers start up again, it'll be time to watch for pattern repeats that begin and end with yarnovers, which will happen off and on until round 200 or so

There are more stitches than strictly necessary, but it's not too ridiculous yet.  I suppose the extra stitches are needed in order to give the lace fabric enough stitches to be able to stretch and compress around the stacked increases and decreases.

I'm on my second partial ball of vintage Big Ball #30.  Hopefully they'll all be similar enough to look reasonable in one project, and hopefully I have enough to complete the project.  I will no doubt keep saying that until the doily is finished and blocked.

I think that's all I wanted to write down.  The knitting is not going particularly quickly, probably because there aren't long stretches of plain stockinette.  I keep messing up parts of the pattern repeats, but so far, I've noticed and fixed them pretty quickly.  There's one spot that I think is still there that is too much of a pain to completely fix, but it won't be noticeable as long as I don't mess up the rest of that motif. 

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Brioche all the things!

That was my knitting group's unofficial motto for a while.  My friends were all doing brioche and I was inspired to join in on the fun.  Not only do I easily succumb to temptation, I knew that brioche can break up the weird striping, stacking, and pooling that can happen with variegated yarns.  Sometimes that's what one wants, but other times, it's not.  I had some small batches of variegated yarn that weren't quite fitting with any of my ideas and I wanted them out of my stash.  So, I knit a brioche scarf and then a few circular-knit cowls.  Then I dithered about what to do next and got distracted by something else.  Luckily for me, I wrote down how I did the cowls.

Brioche knitted cowl

Cast on a likely number of stitches.  Cast on loosely since the brioche is going to be very stretchy!  For the cowl in the photo, I think it was 74 stitches because I used a long-tail cast-on and that's how many stitches I got before the yarn tail ran out.

Set-up rnd: k1, sl1yo

Rnd 1: sl1yo, brp

Rnd 2: brk, sl1yo

Notice the 2 yos that occur next to each other at the end of rnd 2 and the beginning of rnd 1.

sl1yo = slip1 as if to purl, yarnover (can be done as a single maneuver)

brp = purl the slipped stitch from the previous round together with its yarnover.

brk = knit the slipped stitch from the previous round together with its yarnover.

When ready to cast-off:

Final round: k1, p1 (doing the brp or brk as necessary)

Then cast off in pattern.  Again, keep the cast-off very loose to match the elasticity of the brioche.

Hmm, maybe I should go fishing in the stash for suitable yarn and make a few more brioche things, whether cowls or scarves or something else entirely.  I still have some fun variegated yarn that I haven't quite figured out what to do with.  Brioche is a possible answer.

Cast on! Lavori 07/30

I think I have enough full and partial balls of white Clark's Big Ball #30 crochet thread to do this doily -- somewhere in the 1500 to 2000 yard range.  And I think the balls are all close enough in color.

So I cast on!

I am starting with the smallest balls (partial balls, either bought that way or left over after a previous doily) and working my way up.

I'm already up to round 30 after an hour or two of knitting, not that it's all that much considering how many more tens or hundreds of thousands of stitches I have left.  But so far it's been fun, with some hex mesh growing between columns of knit stitches.  On the next round I'll be starting the first set of leaves which will be at the base of the big flower motif.  I guess the columns of knit stitches are the stems of those flowers.

Once the doily is on one of my longer needles (probably at least a 32"), I'll give myself permission to do smaller doilies even while the longer one is in progress.  There are at least 3-4 smaller ones on my to-do list that I was dithering about before starting this one, as is obvious from my previous posts.

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Here's a bonus small doily pic.  I don't think I've posted this before.

This is Lavori 11/40.  It is 36 rounds and knit from leftover DMC Cebelia #30.  I do like DMC Cebelia more than Clark's Big Ball, but eh, I'll use what I have.  I like Cordonnet even more than Cebelia, and #40 and #50 more than #30, but it's not like I have a lot of that lying around, either.  This doily has 8 pattern repeats per round and no chart errors (or at least none I mentioned at the time).

I think the thread is the same as I used for Duchrow 64/05, which I posted a photo of a few weeks ago.  I'm pretty sure that the main thing made with this thread was Primula, a Marianne Kinzel design from the First Book of Modern Lace Knitting.  I'm pretty sure I made at least one or two more small doilies from the leftovers.  Dunno if any of this green thread is left or if it's all been turned into doilies, crocheted into snowflakes, and used in weaving/braiding projects.

I really should do a bunch of quick little doilies (<50 rounds) and put them into metal rings to use as sun catchers and wall decorations and other gift-like presentations.  It's been a while since I've done that.

A quick doily -- Beyer 7014/09B

 

This is Beyer 7014/09B, the small octagonal doily of a 5-piece set.  It's 36 rounds and, as the name implies, 8 pattern repeats per round.  There are no chart errors.

Three of the 5 doilies in this set are found in Burda 418, as doilies 31 to 33.  I've knit those.  So why not add the other two of the set if I don't have any better ideas?  There's one left to go -- the larger hexagon, 7014/09C, which can also be blocked as an oval, not that I am likely to deliberately block it into an oval.  Dunno if/when I'll get to it, but it's also a fairly small doily at 58 rounds.

The slight lopsidedness of the photo is due to the angle from which I took the pic -- it takes things that are mostly regularly shaped and adds vaguely trapezoidal distortions.

It was a quick knit.  I cast on in the afternoon and was finished the same evening, and this was pick up and put down knitting rather than anything intensive.

There are some other cute sets in Beyer 7014, as I've already mentioned.  Many were reprinted in Burda Folge 2 (also known as Burda 305) or other Burda specials.  Some of the sets look like fun and others look like a pain.  As usual, I will knit whatever appeals to me.  If I like knitting it and like how it looks, I often enjoy having other variations to try.

Since I do not live the doily lifestyle, I have no use for lacy doily sets.  I just knit them.

I feel like mentioning that the doily shown on the back cover of Beyer 7014 really appealed to me when I first saw it.  There's something very swoon-worthy over the way the leaves distort.  It wasn't in the magazine.  It took me a while to track down the pattern -- variations are in various Burda publications and also a Diana publication.  I only knit one motif as a standalone doily but enjoyed it greatly.  One of these days I'll post a pic.

What's next?  I'm not sure, though of course Beyer 7014/09C is a strong contender.

I'm in the middle of the most recent commissioned tablet-woven band, as I think I've already written about, while thinking about what I want to do when the commissions are finished.  I'm also thinking about hauling out my marudai, inspired by Claudia Wollny's latest kumihimo Youtube video on Kawari Yatsu Gumi #1.  Plus, as always, more fingerloop and freehand or disk braiding.  But those are topics for another blog, not this one.

To get back to knitting, I've been trying to felt the Monmouth Cap, mostly by getting it very wet and throwing it in the dryer with towels, though it did go through a couple of washer/dryer cycles with other batches of clothing/towels/linens.  It's being a little frustrating -- some parts of felting nicely, while others still have a lot of stitch definition and aren't felting much at all.  I guess I'll keep going since the hat still needs to shrink more.  I want all of it to be felted since it'll be a lot more windproof that way.  If necessary, I suppose I'll have to finish it up by hand so I can personally target the areas that need more attention.  I wonder why it is behaving this way?  I don't usually have this problem with washer/dryer felting.

The cat bed is still occupied by cats so I haven't bothered to try to felt it.  They don't care.  I guess I'll wait until it needs washing.  That way, I can be sure to felt some cat hair into it, too.

Other than that, it's the usual thinking about potential projects -- More hats?  How about mittens and fingerless mitts?  Start making socks again?  Or the next handspun travel-project shawl?  And the next sweater for me?  And so on!  I still want to make a doily rug someday but that's not really occupying much brain space at the moment since it's the same category as other stash-buster projects.

I really do need to decide on what thread to use for Lavori 07/30 so I can start that, too.  Though as long as I keep knitting some kind of doily without getting too bored or frustrated, it's all good.  Once I start the big one, it'll be a while before I get back to smaller doilies again.

FdA 684 (Etoile à huit branches)

Done and blocked.  It was a fun knit and I like the results.  Yay!

Here's the other orientation, though I'm not sure how it related to the orientation from which I took the photo:

Hmm, I like both views.

I'm probably going to warp up for some tablet weaving next -- commission weaving (i.e. someone asked me to make them some things), but it ought to be very straightforward after I get everything threaded and tensioned.

As for doilies, I'm vaguely considering banging out a few quickie doilies while I dither about thread for Lavori 7/30.  Today's thought is about how there are all the cute sets of doilies in Beyer Kunststricken Heft 4 (7014), most or all of which are also in Burda Folge 2 (305), for example.  I've knit some, but not all, and they're all very manageable in size.  There are also some MEZ sets where I've knit the larger doily or doilies, but not the smaller sizes.  Not that I need to knit the full set, of course.  In particular, I am not a huge fan of most oval doilies or multi-motif doilies.  I don't mind the ovals that can be blocked round or that take their shape without needing to cut the thread and knit wings.  I also am fine with turning multi-motif doilies into single-motif doilies.  Oh, and a lot of the knitting pattern collections have small, simple doilies in addition to the bigger, more elaborate ones.  Those too would be quick to knock out.  Or I could see what small Engeln doilies seem enticing, though with those, I often do scale up to one of the larger ones that he builds from the small centers.  I've knit all or almost all of the Kinzel small doilies; I could knit more since they're all lovely, but I'm more likely to choose something new.

But you never know.  I'm easily distracted.

In other knitting news: I've definitely chosen the Touchstone Shawl by Laura Aylor as my next travel project.  I started making progress on it a week or two ago, and it pleases me enough to keep going.  I'm using one of the variegated sock yarns (Zauberball Crazy) and it's a good match.  The shawl is of the asymmetric triangle/crescent style, where increases happen on one side with some compensating decreases on the other side.  There are occasional bands of simple lace, so the hardest part is counting the number of ridges between lace bands.  And of course it doesn't matter if I miscount every now and then.  My gauge is a trifle looser than I like but it looks good and I don't care enough to take it out and start over.  I've outgrown the 24" bamboo needle and have switched to a long circular.  It should keep me out of trouble for a while.

I still need to finish felting my Monmouth Cap, and also give a bit of thought to the Next Sweater.  It'll be for me, probably, and will probably (but maybe not!) use handspun.  Plus a few more things, but if I think about it too hard, I'll get stuck in an analysis-paralysis loop and then will sit and twitch with nothing getting done.  Sigh.

Easily distracted

I still think I want to do Lavori 7/30.  But while I dither over thread I'm getting distracted by other things.

Dither:  I have a fair amount of vintage Clark's Big Ball 30.  But would I rather use something finer and better quality?  Is what I have actually one color or is it two (white and ivory, maybe, or perhaps two slightly different shades of white)?  And will I need closer to 1500 yards or 2000 yards?  Should I use the big batch of vintage #50 thread (2200-ish yards), or should I save that for another project?  Should I buy something and if so, what?  Even mail order doesn't have the selection that used to be in all the stores back when these magazines were being published.  Also, the prices for good quality thread for doily-knitting are a lot higher, which I suppose isn't particularly surprising.  And at least some of the brands that used to have many colors now only do white and ecru.

Here's what the doily looks like in Lavori 7, by the way.  It's hard to discern the details, but it's obviously very Niebling-esque.  Isn't it adorable?  It has 210 rounds, so it will take quite a while once I get started.

While I was dithering, I cast on FdA 684.

It is a charmingly silly pattern, again, with very typical Niebling-esque touches.  Is it from his design house?  I'm not sure, but it uses motifs and stitch combos he's known for, and it's from FdA, which is known to have printed a lot of his patterns.  Whoever the designer was, it's a very clean design, satisfying to knit.  There's a minor chart error in round 25 but it's easy to recognize given the overall symmetry of the design.

I decided to use a colorful ball of thrift store vintage Clark's Big Ball 30.  It's a very bright salmon/coral pink.  The ball claims to have 250 yards, so with 78 rounds in the pattern, I knew it would be close.

I ditched at round 76.  Round 77 was just stockinette so this was a simple fix.  The cast-off above didn't look right so I changed that a bit, too.  It's marginally possible I could have knit round 77 and still had enough for the cast-off, but I can't say that with a lot of confidence.  And I definitely wouldn't have been able to add round 78.

So...  note to self -- 250 yards won't go as far as I hope.  Stick to shorter patterns.  Will I believe myself next time?  Who knows?  I have a few more balls of this thread in different colors.

I'll have a better pic for the next post, but here's the doily pinned out on a big piece of cardboard.  I wasn't as careful as I should be, but it's OK.  As usual, the slightly trapezoidal perspective is due to me standing above the doily when I took the pic.  Ditto for the shadow at the bottom of the photo.

Will I get distracted by other short or short-ish doilies while dithering about Lavori 7/30?  I guess I'll find out!

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Sechsblatt, from Frau und Mutter:

Here's a pic of another red doily, though it's a different shade of red.  I knit it many years ago.  Yeah, the photo sucks, but that's true of most of my photos.

This is a credited Herbert Niebling pattern.  It's called Sechsblatt and it's from Kunststricken Nr 476, also known as Frau und Mutter.

I like this pattern because it's actually a rather clumsy design as well as not having any of the fancy tricks that we all know and love from Niebling's most elaborate designs.  The way that the inner motif has 6 pattern repeats and the outer motif has 10 is something that I find rather odd.

It was a very quick knit, not surprising since it's only 34 rounds.

I do like the inner star/flower motif, and there's nothing wrong with any individual element or even how they all go together.  I've knit many of this type of doily, and should probably knit even more since they're a good size to give away or to fit inside a macrame hoop as a sun-catcher.

It's also good reminder that there are many lovely patterns that don't have immediately-identifiable designers, and that all of the designers made generic-ish patterns as well as identifiable ones.  It's a good way for designers to experiment with motifs that often show later up in larger patterns.

Frau und Mutter has several other very attractive designs as well as some I find awkward-looking.  Most patterns are credited to Niebling, though at least one of the designs recorded on Ravelry is credited to Duchrow.

FdA 958

Here it is:

I like it, of course.

Here's a close-up of the floral motifs:

Now on to the next doily!  Which starts by dithering over whether I have enough thread to make Lavori 7/30 and if it's good enough quality.

I expect the 210-round doily to take somewhere between 1500 and 2000 yards of thread.  Do I have 2000 yards of anything I'm willing to use?  Is 2200 yards of thread excessive?  Is 1600 yards enough?

Also, the vintage Clark's thread is kind of meh in quality, or at least the #30 is.  I might have enough of it, but should I try to get something better?  A large doily is a serious time commitment.

Luckily I have plenty of other things to distract me while I dither.