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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Finished Wisp, and a Dumb Knitting Question

I finished the Wisp shawl thing from Knitty yesterday, and used about six hundred pins to wet block it on a cardboard sewing mat covered with some cloth and black plastic—satisfyingly, it dried in no time, so I could get on to the fun part: choosing buttons. I found some old shell buttons in my "vintage" button collection, but they seem a little too heavy still, so my mom is sending along some other options from the, er, mother lode of buttons. One group is apparently honey-colored antique plastic, which I think would look great.

I'm quite happy with my first lace attempt; I am especially happy that I had to use only one skein of Kidsilk Haze and even had a bit leftover—I did accidentally skip a row here or there, which probably helped. I didn't make eyelets in the button end of the rectangle—didn't see any point.

So here's a dumb question: How do you weave in ends so that they don't work their way out with wear? I take the yarn all different directions, and really try to get it woven in well, and stretch the material a bit to simulate how it stretches when the thing's worn, but I usually end up with little tufts. For example, on the Fetching fingerless gloves, of which I've made two pairs (yes, I just make whatever Cheryl Niamath tells me to; she puts me in mind of the architect turned fashion designer with like thirteen kids who was a runner-up on Project Runway), I get all sorts of ends coming out at the thumbs, even though I thought I was doing a really thorough weaving-in job. Does blocking help?

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