Note that there is no small furry animal reclining on it. Lucy plopped herself down on it when I first laid it out, but by the time I was ready to snap a photo she had gotten bored and wandered off.

Project Specs:

Pattern: Girasole, by Jared Flood
Yarn: Indigo Moon fingering weight merino in the “MyroGreen Lite” colorway
Needles: 4mm (U.S. size 6)

I knit the pattern exactly as written and found no problems whatsoever with the pattern. It’s well-written and easy-to-follow and there’s nothing too difficult in any of the lace patterns. An adventuresome lace beginner ought to be able to knit it.

The fingering weight sized Girasole calls for 1150 yards. I purchased 4 skeins of my yarn at 370 yards per skein. I used exactly 3.5 skeins of the yarn, so assuming the yardage per skein was correctly stated (and I’ve no reason to believe it wasn’t), I used a total of 1295 yards for my Girasole, 145 yards more than the pattern called for.

Now, I am a loose knitter knitter but instead of going down a couple of needle sizes, I did use the recommended needle size for fingering weight yarn — the 4mm needle. I didn’t bother to check my gauge as it’s a lace piece. And my Girasole blocked out to about 60″ in diameter, rather than the 51″ stated in the pattern, so that’s likely why I used more yarn.

Speaking of blocking, I did not wet-block this. I steam-pressed it. I started in the center and worked my way out until I got to the edge, pulling out the tips of the edging as I went around. This worked very well and I got a nice even circle, even though it might look a little uneven in the first photo above, which was taken at a bit of an angle because I didn’t feel like climbing up on the coffee table to take a birds-eye view photo.

In Other News

I’ve decided to abandon (at least for now) the small gansey I have been working on. I’m not happy with it for reasons I can’t exactly explain and I can’t get enthusiastic about working on it, so it has been shelved.

I did start a new sock, but I’ll talk about that tomorrow!

Lucy Sez

“Eh. I didn’t want this dumb ol’ shawl anyway.”

ETA: I was safe at home when the D.C. subway collision occurred this afternoon. Thank you for your concern for my well-being!

Rather than use a circular cast-on like Emily Ocker’s cast-on, I simply did a regular long-tail cast-on on three dpns and joined them into a circle and began to knit. Because this is a lace piece, I don’t mind having a hole in the middle. Rather, I like the little ring that’s formed by this cast-on.

That’s what the piece looked like Saturday morning. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see how nice it looks with the little ring in the center. I was transferring it from a 24″ circular to a 32″ and was able to spread it out nicely. I’m loving the yarn I chose to use — Indigo Moon fingering weight merino in the “MyroGreen Lite” colorway. The lighter variegation sort of look like the sun is shining on it.

Here’s what the piece looks like right now:

Obviously, I can no longer spread it out into a nice circle. I’m a bit over two-thirds the way through Chart D and zipping along nicely. Said zipping along will screech to a halt at the end of Chart D, because at that point you double the number of stitches to 640. Yeah, that’ll slow things down!

I estimate (judging from the amount of yarn I’ve used so far) I’m about one-third done with my Girasole. I’m really enjoying knitting this. It’s very easy lace and the pattern is very clear and easy to follow, so if you are a lace wannabe or newbie, I encourage you to give it a try.

Meanwhile, Lucy is busy being inscrutable.