Dragons Ruff
Dragons Ruff is now available for purchase as a download, for $6.00 either on Ravelry, or directly through the blog … buy now
Inspired by the ruff many dragons are depicted with, this shawl consists of a background of garter stitch mesh interspersed with strips of stockinette that add depth. It’s finished off with a deep garter stitch border that grounds the entire piece.
Knit in one piece from the top down, this shawl begins by casting on 9 stitches at the back of the neck and increasing 7 stitches every other row to shape this shawl into 7/8ths of a circle that stays draped elegantly over the shoulders. Finally, an eyelet-increase row is worked just before the garter stitch border, and just before the bind off to ensure that a thorough blocking is possible.
Yarn: Madelinetosh ‘tosh lace,’ 950 yards (968 meters), 100% superwash merino, 1 skein, shown in ‘nebula’
Needles: US size 2.5 (3.00 mm) 40 inch (101 cm) circular, or size needed to obtain gauge
Notions: 7 stitch markers, tapestry needle
Gauge: 6.5 sts/inch; 12 rows/inch (6.5 sts/2.5 cm; 12 rows/2.5 cm) in washed and blocked garter
Blocked Dimensions: 24 inches (61 cm) from center back to each point along the hem
Skills Used: casting on, binding off, knitting, purling, k2tog, yarn over, weaving in ends, blocking lace
Lots of Travel Time
Means lots of knitting time.
I finally bound off this shawl. That tiny ball of yarn lasted, but the tail you can see is all that is left. It certainly got a little nerve wracking towards the end. I’m going to try and get it blocked this week, and start writing up the pattern.
And because decreasing the total number of works in progress I have on the needles would just be silly, I cast on another shawl. This pattern is part of this project, I’m still working on getting the written portion worked out, but the overall idea is beginning to take shape.
The project getting the most of my attention has been this one (I’m thinking of calling it Lyla or Lylia but haven’t decided yet). Lots of hours in the car, a bunch of hours on airplanes, and a couple hours sitting in airports turned into a few inches on this shawl. Progress really slowed down after the last increase round, but I’m still plugging away at it.
That being said, my second Zodiac le Plume is also steadily growing (that snow looks really appealing right now, it’s supposed to be 99F tomorrow). It’s sits on my desk to the right of my computer and gets a couple stitches added while I’m reading, or something is uploading. The legal pad was a failed attempt to make the lace patterning easier to see, maybe next time I’ll pin it out on something. Now that the pattern is available again, I thought it might be fun to do a knit-a-long of sorts. If anyone wants to join me, just let me know and we can figure something out.
I’m going to try not casting anything on until I finish up a couple of these works in progress (there are three more that I didn’t even bother photographing because they haven’t moved at all). At the moment I sort of feel like I’m drowning in WIPs, but we’ll see how well this attempt at WIP reduction goes.
Photos: Dragons Ruff
I don’t think I’ve really blogged about this shawl much. I sort of slipped it in at the end of last year as the last shawl for 11 shawls in 2011. The pattern has been patiently waiting for photos and a final edit, (it has probably been a couple months at this point, oops). But now that I have the photos edited, the pattern will be out tomorrow.
Much like the knitting for Spider Silk, it was an easy, comforting knit, that didn’t take a huge amount of brain power, but wasn’t totally mind numbing either.
