Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Endless Coral

Finally, finally, done with this.

And, though I love how it looks, I think I like the crochet version better.

So there.

Some things to know:

Shorter ends on your circular are going to be much easier to work with. Because you start with only 10 stitches, that center tends to pull the rest in, no matter how much you increase, so those longer ends get in the way. Perhaps an optimal circular needle length would be the 16", as the smaller lengths tend to have shorter needle ends? Not sure if that holds true for all circulars, but it seemed to be that way for mine. It was so frustrating, so hard to work with, I nearly gave up. So start with shorties, folks.

Resist the temptation to do "just one more" row. It can become endless. Trust me.

When binding off in i-cord (new for me), you want the stitch you are knitting as one with the i-cord to be to the right, so it can hide under the i-cord edge. I slipped the stitch off the circular onto the dbl point before knitting together, just to make it a little easier to handle. I tended to do that on the first stitch, but then on the last (of each i-cord row), I generally just knitted them both together off their respective needles. Just keep the non-i-cord stitch to the right, or it will end up looking twisted.

By "RH", as concerns the stitches on the circular, it means the stitches that would be to the right, with the knit side facing, if you were about to continue knitting with your circular. I was confused by that, in the pattern, so that's why I mention it here. Though, reading this over, I'm not sure I'm making it clearer anyway.

Super simple pattern, but a little difficult to execute. I blame my tools. And maybe the yarn.

Something unexpected: The lacy pattern that forms as you do the increases. Very cool looking.

(Confession: I finished this just shortly after beginning our drive to Idaho. Maybe not so endless as it seemed? Still, I wish I'd resisted knitting that last increase row.)

Yarn: LB Wool-Ease in Buttercup, LB Wool-Ease Sport in Melon

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