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Saturday, October 09, 2010

Adventures in Entrelac II

After my first foray into the world of Entrelac, I decided to give it another go with a better suited yarn. Luckily, I happened to have an old abandoned skein of Noro Silk Garden laying around. I had purchased the yarn with great things in mind for it, I'm sure...I just don't remember what those things might have been. Probably a one-skein scarf or something. I know that everyone raves about this yarn, but I found it a bit scratchy and decided I didn't want to wear it against my skin...thus, the availability for my new adventures...

Using the same pattern that I used last time, I started stitching merrily away. It was a much smoother ride than my first little adventure...for the most part.
Off topic - I love my new tablecloth!

I didn't block it, so this was the natural bumpiness caused by the stitches. My rows of picked up stitches have improved, and are less obvious than last time. However, even though it's not really apparent here, I still seem to have some pretty large holes were the corners of the blocks meet. If I were to block the piece, I'm afraid there would be huge gaps at those spots. All in all though, I'd say it looks pretty good...

Look again! Oops! That glaring bright spot in the upper right hand corner there? Yep, that's where I took my inevitable wrong turn. I was so close to finishing and ended up running out of yarn! Nooo! If this had been an actual garment or something to be gifted, I would have frogged the last 2 tiers and finished it off, simply making the whole thing shorter. (You have to start the final tier of half blocks after a tier that faces in the correct direction.) But, since this was just a practice piece anyway, I decided to leave it as is.

I haven't decided if there will be any more attempts with the entrelac technique or not. I have determined that I quite dislike picking up stitches, and this technique requires a ton of that. Plus the gaping hole issue. We'll see...

In the meantime, I found the softest yarn ever at Michael's the other day, and will give you all a peek.


I am using this to make a surprise for someone, so I can't say any more about it, except that it's a little bit tricky to work with, but I am getting the hang of it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I like the work you did with the entrelac. It's colorful and arty.

As for that pink stuff, is that cocoon yarn? It gives me the willies when I see it, plus some 70's memories of curtains in my bedroom. aaaaa......