I waited a while before starting clue 4 of the Mystery Stole, posted last Friday. This was the stage where we could either shorten or lengthen our stoles and it took me a while to agonise over my decision. While I probably am the shortest person in the group, I still thought about knitting the full-sized pattern. I use scarves and shawls for warmth rather than decoration and like to wrap them around me, and preferably more than once.

However, I finally came to the conclusion that if there is a shorter version, it’s probably meant for people 10-15 cm taller than me, so really the answer should be quite obvious, and I wouldn’t want to be tripping over my accessories, either. So I went for the shorter version. But, alas; this was a two-week clue and therefore almost three times as long as the previous ones. The normal version, that is. The shorter version was even less than our regular dose. So I basically ran out of knitting as soon as I’d started, and clue 5 doesn’t come out until next Friday. Bummer.

Now that clue 4 is done, the shortened stole should be about half of the finished size, and I must say I’m a little worried. I know that wet blocking will stretch it more than pinning and yes, it will be longer than my wingspan, but at least one end is pointy and that doesn’t really count, does it…?

There’s a “designer-instructed lifeline” towards the end of the clue. I don’t normally use lifelines, but for this one we were strongly recommended to insert one on a specific row, for reasons yet to be revealed. Sorry for the crooked spine, by the way – I was in a hurry to pin the stole out and didn’t notice until now that it’s all wonky.

The design is still looking good, and I enjoy knitting it. My only frustration with this project is that the clues are quite short and when they’re done, something seems to prevent me from starting anything new. It bothers me that there’s something this big just sitting there unfinished – I’d rather finish this one quickly and then go on to something completely different. (Such as another lace stole…)

In the pattern, Cookie A. says she knitted, ripped, reknitted, ripped, reknitted etc. these socks for about four times while designing them before she got them right.

I did the same. While everyone is saying the design is easy to knit – and I agree – it was the hardest one to resize so far. It consists of four 16-stitch pattern repeats. I usually cut about 1/3 off any socks when making them for myself, so I thought it safest to start with three pattern repeats. Knitted a bit and realised it was way too big. Rip 1. So I tried two pattern repeats, although feared it wouldn’t be enough. Knitted a bit and found that while the girth was OK, the sock was just a tad too tight to go over the heel. Rip 2. Next I tried widening the pattern by four stitches, two on both sides, and knitting two repeats. Too big again – when the sock is too loose the pattern doesn’t come out. So, alas, rip 3. Next up: widen pattern by two stitches and knit two pattern repeats. Bingo! With 2 x 18 stitches, 36 in all, the sock finally fit.

So on we go. I knitted these top down because with all the resizing hassle I wasn’t in the mood to start figuring out how to do these toe up. All the while I was hoping to use as much of the leftover JitterBug Mist as possible. Knitted three pattern repeats for the length of the leg and was seriously afraid of running out of yarn. Got to the toe and realised I had plenty of yarn left. Enough to lengthen the leg by at least one more pattern repeat. Only I didn’t feel like ripping back all the way to where the heel flap starts and redoing the heel (for me, figuring out how to do a reduced heel without messing up the pattern usually goes by trial and error, so there was a rip 4 there) and foot, so I finished the sock and decided to ignore the small ball of yarn that was left.

Except that it bothered me too much. And so, against all advise from more experienced knitters, I decided to rip the rib part, pick up the stitches and knit another pattern repeat on top of the existing sock leg. This would involve some magical flipping over of the pattern to knit it in the opposite direction, which I, ever so confident, figured I could do. Little did I know that a) you can’t rip from the beginning – you have to take each stitch apart one by one. Extremely time-consuming! b) picking up stitches in the middle of the knitting and then going on in the opposite direction just doesn’t look good. While I don’t think a non-knitter would have noticed and this part of socks is usually hidden anyway, it just looked too unnatural to me. Nevertheless, determined as I am, I had to try it a couple of times before admitting that it didn’t work out. These steps included rip 5, rip 6 and I believe a rip 7 as well, because after each trip to the frog pond I added one feature that I did backwards to save the pattern. In the end I gave my efforts a good rip 8 and did the obvious – knitted the beginning of the sock (rib + one pattern repeat) separately and grafted it onto the rest of the sock. Worked beautifully. I still didn’t use up all the yarn – there probably would have been enough for two extra pattern repeats, but knee socks look funny on short legs (at least mine).

Whoaa. On to the second sock, which went in a breeze. And now, may I present to you:


Pattern: Monkey socks
Designer: Cookie A.
Yarn: Colinette JitterBug, colourway Mist, 52 g
Needles: 3 mm rosewood glove dpns

I wasn’t going to post about the Mystery Stole every week as I thought no-one would be interested in seeing the same old thing slowly progress week after week, and I also figured that since the KAL was so immensely popular, you’d be sick of seeing basically the same thing over and over again on thousands of blogs. But turns out I was wrong – people like to see progress shots! So, due to popular demand, I present to you clue #2 that never got posted last week:

And this is the situation now, clue 3 finished:

My keeping-track-of-pattern method is simple: Post-It notes. Works like a charm. Haven’t had to rip back once.

It’ll be interesting to see what the finished stole looks like and what the theme is. The MS3 mailing list is full of wild guesses. I quite like the “Indian headdress/goat/frog/medusa/dragon” image on the bottom, the “honeycomb/flames/scales” pattern above it and the “waves/tribal/Celtic” design on the borders, but hope there will be no more upside-down Vs, at least not for a while…

Here’s a closeup:

I seem to be getting sucked into lace knitting now. I still don’t consider myself a lacy person – I just like knitting lace (and everything else I’ve tried so far). I’ve just ordered yarn for four other lace projects, two of which I have a pattern for. The other two will be waiting in the stash for the right moment. Oh, and I’d already bought yarn for one lace thing (no, I don’t post all the yarn I buy on my blog…), and then there’s all that laceweight merino from Tallinn…

Note to self: Buy more pins. Loads.

While waiting for the Mystery Stole clues, I knitted a pair of socks for my love. Man socks! I had them with me at the monthly knitting meet-up last week, and while I would describe them as “massive”, “huge” and “monstrously big”, the others reckoned they were just normal. Which they probably are, but I’m not used to knitting socks that big. While it takes about two afternoons to make a pair of socks for me, these seemed to drag on forever. I was also seriously worried about running out of yarn, but in the end there was probably enough left to make a pair for me as well.

Pattern: Thuja socks
Designer: Bobby Ziegler, Knitty winter 2005
Yarn: Trekking Pro Natura (75% pure new wool, 25% bamboo), colourway 1603, about 70 g
Needles: 2.5 mm bamboo dpns

The pattern is about as basic as can be, which is OK as I guess few men would like to wear elaborate lace on their feet. What’s weird is that while I was looking forward to knitting socks precisely according to the pattern, for once not having to do the maths and make them smaller, I had no such luck. The yarn I used was so much thinner than that of the pattern that I actually had to make these bigger! I also modified them a bit around the heel and gusset decreases to make the stripes go the way I wanted them to go.

As for the yarn – not impressed. It was coarse, thin and splitty compared to JitterBug, and what’s more, it completely lacked that spring and bounce that makes JitterBug such a lovely sock yarn. I know I’ve been JB spoiled, but I can’t help it. I found myself knitting these with a permanent frown on my face, constantly apologising for my poor choice of yarn and promising to knit the next pair with some decent yarn. Even the pattern seems to get lost in the flatness of the yarn. The colourway is faded and a little dull – much less bright than in the colour chart picture – yet somehow quaint. It reminds me of an old barn, faded and worn from decades of sunshine, rain and harsh weather. Quite beautiful, actually.

And He Who Shall Wear The Socks likes them, and that’s the main thing.

Clue 2 of the Mystery Stole is also done. The clues seem to be quite short – I had expected them to be twice as long. Sure it leaves time for other projects, but impatient as I am, I would rather finish this one quickly and move on…

Last Friday was the day almost 4,000 knitters worldwide had been waiting for in agony – the first clue of Mystery Stole 3 was posted. While I don’t quite share the tremendous excitement and panic wallowing on the mailing list, I, too, printed the charts and grabbed my needles.

After some serious swatching (first time for that as well…) I settled on Wetterhoff Silvia, 70% wool and 30% silk. It comes in some truly fab colours, but for this one I stuck with black. It’s slightly thicker than the Merinos Extra I swatched first, about the same as JaggerSpun Zephyr which the designer of MS3 used for her stole and which quite a few of the knitters-a-long seem to be using. There’s something weird about this yarn, though – the colour seems to rub off onto my hands, and the bamboo straights I’m using weren’t this black when I started, either. Has anyone else noticed the same? Is this typical of all Wetterhoff yarns or did I just get a bad batch?

In any case, here’s the test swatch…

…and here’s clue 1, lightly pinned out so you can see the pattern:

And guess what? I like it. It was even more fun than I anticipated to see the design appear little by little. I even like the design so far and definitely enjoy knitting it. My only disappointment was that it went by so quickly. I started on Friday evening after dinner and did a bit more on Saturday after dinner, both while watching tv, texting to my friends and making dinner party arrangements, and all of a sudden I was done! And now I have to wait until this Friday for the next clue.

What’s more, I seem to like knitting lace in general. I guess it helps that I like knitting from charts – it’s so easy and clear. And after all the sock resizing maths, I found it really relaxing just to knit according to the pattern and leave all the thinking behind.

And since it’s freezing at the office and I could really use a light but warm shawl now, I’m already planning my second lace project. I’ve been a one-project-woman so far, but with this one stretching over mid-August I have to have something else to do while waiting for the clues…

If you’re at all thinking about joining MS3, I can recommend it, even if you’re new to lace. This is my first lace project, and so far everything has gone well. I just knitted according to the pattern and didn’t even have to rip back once. There’s still a couple of days left to join before the group closes this Friday. A word of warning about the e-mail traffic, though – you might want to consider going digest or special notices only unless you have a lot of time in your hands…