2/19/10: Almost Done with My Liesl

I'm keeping true to my earlier post by spending a good deal of time this week knitting my Liesl, a lace cardigan designed by Ysolda Teague. At this moment I am about 5-6" away from being done. I'm working on the lower body and since there is no change in pattern (no decreasing and whatnot) I am coming along speedily. I think I should be done by this coming Tuesday! :) I can't wait!

OK, now for some notes. . .

1. Problem separating sleeves - I ran into a problem when separating the sleeves from the body section. I had to bind off some stitches for the armhole on the first row and on the succeeding row I needed to cast on stitches whilst knitting. I haven't cast-on whilst knitting much before so I wasn't sure what cast-on method I should use. I just quickly skimmed through my knitting reference book and chose the twisted loop cast-on. This was not a good choice as I soon found out. For when I needed to knit the following row I found it impossible to knit into the tight cast-on loops. Thinking that I was doing something totally wrong, I posted my question on a Ravelry forum devoted to all things Ysolda Teague. The second response I got pinpointed my problem: I should not have used the twisted loop method, but instead should have went with the knitted cast-on. I ripped my work to the problem area and did the recommended knitted cast-on. It worked splendidly! I had no problem knitting into the cast-on loops! Yay!

2. Lifelines to the Rescue - Lace patterns can be tricky. So when I cast-on Liesl I knew from the start that I needed to have a back up and it came in the shape of lifelines. Lifelines are smooth, thin yarns that are threaded through the stitches that are on the needle to help you rip work back without the worry of laddering and ripping too far. I use a long, blunted yarn needle and size 5 crochet thread in a contrasting color (orange for this project) for my lifelines. And I usually place the lifeline right before I need to do some major pattern change, such as separating sleeves. Yeah, that one came in handy!

OK, the photo above is of what I've done so far. You can see the two armholes I made and about 2 inches of body below them.

Close up of one of the armholes. I have rather loose knitting so the armhole looks kind of loopy in areas. I'm planning on doing a round of single crochet around the armhole just to make it more finished looking.

Just as I said before, lace knitting can be tricky. That is why I like to keep stitch markers every 20 stitches. I use normal safety pins for markers.

Here is a close up of the shrug. See that line of orange? That's one of my lifelines.