Lacy goodness

Stop the presses -- I am knitting a (very simple) lace scarf in mohair. The Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts in Rowan Kidsilk Haze, to be precise. I had three balls of Kidsilk Haze in my stash (more on my stash, later), bought on a whim, and which I thought I'd probably never use, since my one previous experience with mohair was not successful. It was, in fact, so horrible that it put me off knitting at all for a while. I totally hated it, found it agonising, and after about twenty incredibly painful rows, quit, and gave the yarn to my mother-in-law. The texture was icky, it stuck to my needles, and it had no give at all. It was some Sirdar blend of tiny amounts of alpaca and mohair and huge amounts of nasty acrylic. Hated it with a passion.

Fast forward, oh, two years, and I have three balls of Kidsilk Haze. Soft, oh God is it soft. 70% kid mohair and 30% silk, leaving exactly NO room for acrylic in the blend. I love this yarn, I pet it frequently, but I assume I am waaaay too new at Real Knitting to even dream of using it yet, and anyway, I'm still traumatized by the Sirdar experience. I place an Amazon order for some knitting books I've wanted, one of which is Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and there I find the Airy Scarf, which actually looks easy (although, for some stupid reason, I feared yarn overs) and more to the point, is listed as a 4-hour project and requires precisely one-half ball of Kidsilk Haze. As I am currently in the early stages of knitting what is shaping up to be an incredibly tedious Summer Tweed cardigan for my mother's birthday in late May, the idea of a four-hour project, one I think I will probably fail to do in four hours, and in fact will totally jack up, has its appeal: I'll hate it, fuck it up, and go back to the comfort of my easy but boring cardigan. Perfect.

Except this is fun! After struggling through the first five garter stitch rows and getting used to the feel of such a fine, lightweight and did I mention mohair yarn, I hit the first row of lace eyelets, and after k2tog'ing, I attempt a yarn over. And I did it right! It worked! And then I did ten more, and they all worked, too. The k2tog parts are a little tricky, since getting my 6mm bamboo needle (alas, I have no polished hardwood 6mms, and I am not cocky enough to go with slippery aluminium on my first real mohair project) through two stitches of a laceweight yarn is not easy, but hey, I persevered and did it. And no way am I getting this scarf done in 4 hours, but damn, this is fun. I can't get over how light it is. Since the pattern repeat is stupid easy, I might just go ahead and use up a whole ball of KH, since the pattern, as written, is for a pretty short scarf, and I like my scarves kind of on the long side. Which will still leave me with three balls of KH to make a shawl from, since, er, I decided, before casting on, that while I love my black KH stash, I really needed to go over to John Lewis and buy the pale pink KH used in the book, since it was just so pretty. And while I was there, well, I needed a couple more skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk to make a tank top with, and damn, if this scarf goes well and quickly, I can make one for my mother-in-law's birthday present, and she's very fond of brown and cream, and look! They make KH in a lovely cream colour, and about ten minutes later, I come to at the cash register, and my £6.50 ball of pink Kidsilk Haze has morphed into, well, a considerably larger purchase than that.

What can I say, the stash is a demanding mistress, but I love her so much it's hard to deny her anything, although at the moment, I'm working on convincing her she can wait a little while for sock yarn. I can't possibly learn to knit socks until I finish that bloody cardigan, I don't care how much she whines for a little Koigu or Lorna's Laces. They will be her reward after I make it through all this goddamn awful Summer Tweed.

It's not that Summer Tweed doesn't make a lovely fabric, because it really does. My swatch, after washing, has a beautiful, interesting texture, and very attractive appearance. Knitting with it is just kind of unpleasant; cotton and silk do not make for yarn with much give, and I am used to using nice, giving wool. This is kind of like knitting with nubbly dental floss. I'm getting better at it; my gauge is very close to dead on, and I've learned to loosen up a little on the tension, plus I switched from a pair of 5mm rosewoods to aluminium needles, so I'm getting some much-needed glide, but really, I just want to be done with this thing, so I can move on to something fun. My first two jumpers, knit for Phil, were made of Rowanspun Chunky (discontinued, dammit, but I've stockpiled some that was going cheap) which I adored, and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky, which is really soft and nice and buttery (and has a good proportion of microfibre in it, so don't think I'm a total natural fibre snob, in spite of me snarking at the hated Sirdar above), and was lots of fun to knit. I suspect I'm just not a big cotton fan when it comes to yarn. I am, however, a total convert to the glories of kid mohair and lace. Time to finish up this scarf and get done with that goddamn cardigan so I can feed the stash some sock yarn.