Maelstrom

As I read back to where this scarf began, I recall that I was doing a lot of cowl knitting and wanted a lightweight lacy project to offset the bulky yarns of winter. I pledged to keep this a piece without a self imposed deadline, to pick up whenever the fancy struck me, and I kept to that.

The lacework section of this design went along quite slowly and required a bit of focus on my part. I could memorize the repeat for a particular row, but trying to work my way through the pattern without frequent references led to unpleasant things. Once I hit the stockinette section, as you'd expect, the yardage flew by. I believe I worked on this through much of the April crunch at work. It required enough attention to put work stress out of mind and was a great way to turn the brain from work to play.

This sat around in a lump for quite a while waiting to be blocked. It's such a lovely design that I wanted to do it justice, and I just hadn't been feeling up to the effort. Enter my new blocking wires! Along with the foam blocking boards I ordered at the same time, these little beauties made blocking a breeze.

I set the wires through the top to make a nice straight line and was able to figure out how to position the bottom edge pretty easily (with Dave's help!). I stuck with steam this time around mostly because I already had the piece pinned out to play with my new gadgets. I steamed it quite a lot though, so hopefully it works. If not, it will now be easy enough to re-do using wet blocking.

The yarn is so lovely to look at and to work with. A close look at the strand reveals a halo of darker blue around a light blue core giving the yarn an interesting almost glow. The stockinette shows off the slight color variations beautifully, and the aforementioned glow really gives depth to the lacework and ribbed sections.

Basic details (more on Ravelry): Unsinkable (pattern by Kirsten Kapur), 1 skein of madelinetosh merino light in 'Well', knit on size 8 circular metal needles, blocked to 77" x 11". The fabric blocked out to be light and airy with a lovely drape. I've got one more skein of this yarn in a flame orange, I can't wait to find a pattern to suit that as well as this pattern suits this pretty blue.