Arctic Lace

Arctic Lace by Donna Druchunas

Lesson 1 Swatch 1 in Worsted Weight

Lesson 2 Swatch 2 in Fingering Weight

Lesson 3 Swatch 3 in Qiviuk (Qiviut blend)

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I have gotten so much out of going through these lessons. In my first swatch you can see the green yarn I used as a stitchmarker. What a brilliant technique, the yarn runs down your work so you can easily see when you go astray. There is no fumbling with getting the needle tip into a stitchmarker without popping it off the sharp tip of a lace needle. Very cool!! I have lost way too many of those little buggers, and I am quite fond of my Entrelac lace stitchmarkers and I don't want to lose any more of them.

The other thing I immediately latched onto which has changed my knitting life is the number of plain stitches written into the charts in bold. That is one of the things I hated most about working with charts, counting the empty boxes - knit stitcthes - between the "pattern" stitches. Such a simple solution, one of those duhs!!!, "why didn't that occur to me?" techniques. Love it, now I can fly through a chart. Yay.

The last thing I discovered is that the color of Qiviuk I chose is very difficult to see at night. No tinking can be done through the week, if I need to frog any errors it can only be done on the weekends when I have daylight streaming through the window. Also, I don't know what I am going to use for a lifeline. The cotton yarn I usually use for a lifeline is thicker than the qiviuk and I had trouble threading it through the stitches on the needles. I was going to use my Harmony needles, but my Addi Turbo Lace Needles came. I did my swatch with them and they work wonderfully with the qiviuk. I joined the Arctic Lace Ravelry and Yahoo groups so I can read other's experiences with this wonderful book and yarn. I will be knitting the North Star Scarf. Not too many people using the qiviut, but Donna is in the Yahoo Group (still waiting for her Ravelry invite) so I am sure if I run into any problems she can help me out. So far working with the muskox yarn has not been any different than working with 100% cashmere or superfine silk blend yarns. It knits up beautifully. Don't worry, this will not become a new "favorite" yarn, this is a very special splurge scarf I am making to replace my cashmere scarf I felted - ouch, it still hurts.