Hyacinth is a lacy, feminine cardigan meant to be worn open or held in place with a shawl pin. The lightweight yarn and elbow-length sleeves add just enough warmth to chase away the air-conditioned (or evening) chill, without the heaviness of a winter cardigan.

The scalloped, floral lace begins at the hemline and travels all the way up the fronts of the cardigan and across the back of the neck. It adds a sweet elegance and style to an otherwise practical sweater. It also keeps all that sophisticated stockinette from growing boring!

Hyacinth is one of those rare sample knits I couldn’t resist wearing before it was published because it is just so perfect for this time of year. It keeps me warm in our freezing cold schools and restaurants, but isn’t jarringly “different” enough to clash with my pretty, summery dresses and work clothes like a winter sweater would be. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do!

Increases

Increases are generally more subtle than decreases, and typically with a kfb or an m1, you can continue doing just that. However, if your pattern’s author has specified a leaning increase, you will need to reverse it. So, an M1R becomes and M1L and vice versa. Raised (or lifted) increases are nearly invisible to begin with, but if you’re feeling nit-picky, a left-leaning increase is made by knitting into the stitch below the one you just knit. A right-leaning increase is made by knitting into the stitch below the one you’re about to knit. A YO increase can technically be wrapped in the opposite direction too, referred to as a reverse yarn over (rev YO), backward yarn over (BYO), or yarn forward (yfwd) – this last one is extra dangerous because it is something different in British knitting terms. As you can see by the lack of consensus on a name for this technique, it doesn’t get used often. To be honest, this one is a slight enough difference that I generally don’t bother.

You can see how much less noticeable the increases (near the arm) are than the decreases (near the hip).

Decreases

Decreases tend to be more visible than increases, so reversing this one can be important. The most common decreases are ssk and k2tog, which are each other’s mirrors. An skp can also be used to mirror a k2tog, and the unusual KRPR (knit-return-pass-return) can be used to mirror an ssk. Skp and KRPR are softer decreases than their more popular cousins. With 3+ stitch decreases, mirroring is often less important because they are more often central decreases. The exceptions are k3tog and its reverse, sssk.

Decreases are more obvious.

Placement

This part seems to confuse people the most, but is actually the most simple when you look at the piece as a whole. If the initial instructions tell you to increase (or decrease) at each neck edge, you continue to do so. However, pretend for example that you BO 3 stitches at the neck edge by working an immediate BO on the RS, and then knitting even to the end of the row. Now you’ll decrease at the neck edge on WS rows, by BO 3 stitches and then purling even to the end of the row. Ordinary decreases and increases can typically still be worked on the same type of row (RS or WS) as on the opposite side, just make sure you’re reversing the type of decrease and you’re still decreasing at the correct side (neck or armhole). If you were instructed to decrease at the neck edge and were decreasing at the end of the row on the left side, you will decrease at the beginning of the row on the right side in order to continue to decrease at the neck edge. This makes perfect sense when you actually look a the garment to see where your neck will go, but can be confusing if you’re just working the the abstract.

Don’t mix up your armhole and neck edges!

It’s really not as confusing as all that text makes it look, I promise! Doing it with the knitting in front of you will make so much more sense. For other confusing “pattern-speak” terms, this is a great resource. To review:

I went out and bought a massive load of new purple beads, but because they don’t match the originals either, I had to rip out all my progress (*sob*) and start again. Then, because this is a self-published pattern and I’m not contracted to any other company, I went ahead and changed the initial lace pattern too. This is one of several reasons I love to self-publish – if I decide on a whim a change will improve my pattern, there’s absolutely no reason I can’t change it. No company will feel cheated or surprised or like they didn’t get what they’ve paid for, and I don’t ever feel obligated to publish what I feel is less than my best. It’s a total win.

Here’s the new lace, unblocked.

Pay no attention to my redneck lazy kate!

I’m managing to get 2 distinct types of singles, in spite of them coming from the same top. You can see the “bobbin” on the left is much darker than the one on the right. And yes, you can also see the cat supervising my spinning. He is a very diligent supervisor.

Here’s a closer look at the colors.

I’ve been plying dark to light, and in the strand it looks very striking, but the effect is actually much more subtle in the skein.

Here it is in the strand.

Here it is all together on the spindle.

I think my favorite part is the absolute glow it gets from the silk content. Silk spins like a dream too, apparently. I think I can probably get one more skein out of the current batch. By then, hopefully, we’ll be moved and I’ll finally have space for a wheel! Getting really excited!

…and then this happened:

and my knitting suddenly got very slow and full of mistakes. By the time this happened:

I had to put the knitting away entirely lest I hurt myself. Then by the time this happened,

I’d not only forgotten my knitting entirely, but was hoarse enough that I’m a bit concerned about being able to do my job this week. This was a way more exciting game than I planned on it being, and I am very glad I had the foresight not to bring any complicated knitting along. Not that I did much knitting at all, but all the jumping up and down would probably have messed up a complicated project!

As an aside that really tells you a lot about this town, we sat between a girl who grew up in the same county as me (here in the suburbs of the U.S. capital) and is a hardcore Germany fan, and a family of incredibly enthusiastic USA fans who are still learning English. I love this place.

Unblocked lace is boring.

but I’ve had to order another pack of beads because there seems to be a disproportionate lack of purple beads in this particular pack. Because this part of the shawl has lace on both sides (as opposed to simply purling, or knitting, the WS rows) it’s also been really slow going. Well, that’s the excuse I’m using anyway.

Additionally, another upcoming design is now ready for test-knitting. This one’s a little adventurous compared to many of my patterns, in part because there are so many suggestions for personalizing it. These cabled knee-highs are not a first-sock pattern, but especially if you participated in my calf poll, we’d love to have you!

Sneak peek of the pattern!

Finally, my apartment is incredibly messy today because we are packing! Our offer has been accepted on a very cute rambler much closer to work, so barring any disasters during the inspection, we are going to become homeowners! I’m suddenly very aware of what an absolute disaster my fiber “corner” has become. Might be time to do a “before and after” for future Messy Mondays!

I have to admit it though, Ms. Hechtman sucked me in. The main character grew a lot more human and likable soon enough, and actually her portrayal of the little North Pacific resort town might be what really hooked me. I love feeling like I’ve been someplace new after a book, and she definitely does a good job of making me feel like I’ve seen the Monterey Peninsula.

While I had a couple of “main suspects” throughout the murder-mystery, and one of them was indeed the killer, I genuinely didn’t know which one it would be until the big reveal. Maybe I’m just not as experienced a mystery reader as some. It certainly made sense in the end though! She does a good job of tying the knitting into the mystery/whole story as well, rather than plopping it down arbitrarily on top of the storyline. Hechtman does seem to be writing a knitting novel for non-knitters though, and over-explained a tad much for my taste.

Yarn to Go also comes with a knitting pattern and a recipe in the back of the book. I skipped the pattern, as it is also designed for non-knitters. It is a good pattern for a total beginner, but less appealing to me. I did try the recipe though. I have to say they’re the richest, most chocolatey cupcakes muffins I’ve ever had. Definitely good served warm with a tall glass of milk.

All in all, a worthwhile read!

I started out with stitch I thought I loved and cast on for two sections of it – one with clear beads and one with purple. After one repeat I could already tell which one I liked better.

Here are the purple beads.

Here are the clear beads.

The clear beads just don’t show up enough to be worth it to me. The beads themselves are shiny, but not flat-out sparkly, so I decided to go with color. That solved the bead question. To my surprise though, I didn’t like the lace pattern as much once I was knitting it. I still like it, but not for the beginning of this particular shawl. I may work it in later, or may just put it away for a different project. We’ll see.

I swatched again with a different stitch pattern, and liked this one better:

Lace Take 2

Like most stitch dictionaries, this one doesn’t have any suggestions for what to do with beads, so I picked spots arbitrarily. I liked the way this one looked with the beads this way, but it felt heavy and sounded clacky and I was worried about the yarn holding up if I beaded like this. So, time to swatch again.

Swatch #3

This is the same lace pattern with fewer beads. Ding ding ding, I think we have a winner! It doesn’t look like much here, but it larger amounts (and blocked) it looks pretty awesome.

I measured my swatch to see what my gauge was, then did some quick calculations to see how many stitches I’d need to get the width I wanted. I nudged that number around a little until I got to the closest multiple of 16 (the size of the repeat for this particular stitch) and cast on! Now comes a nice stretch of nothing but knitting.