Two posts in one = twice the fun

As I was knitting on the edging for the first half of the alpaca stole, I noticed a slightly green color in the yarn.

There was also a slightly green color on my fingers.

And then I remembered noticing this once before, when I was knitting a stole last year on these needles. The yarn was dark, and I didn't think much of it. But now, the yarn is creamy white, and the grayish-green of tarnished brass does not add to the finished piece.

Anyone else had this problem with Addi needles?

I'm still knitting with them, because I love my addi lace needles and Inox are just not the same. I'm just trying to minimize contact between the needles and the yarn while storing them. I rub the needles down when I start, and I'm hoping that the color will just wash out at the end.

If it doesn't, it won't be the end of the world, as I was thinking of dyeing the final product anyway. I'm still not terribly pleased.

In other news, I am horribly behind in telling you what's going on with this project. This processy-blogging works great on a daily schedule, but on a non-daily schedule it kinda drags things out a bit. So, despite the fact that I haven't knit in four days (don't know what came over me), I am still ahead of the blog posting.

This is kind of a new thing for me. I can't say that I hate it.

So today, you get two posts in one. Tarnished fingers, and awkward joins.

Part of the reason that I am playing with the maple leaf stitch pattern is that I wanted to see how lace patterns worked, from the inside out. I wanted to know this so that I could figure out how to put them together seamlessly.

I didn't really think about the join between the rick rib and the waving lace when I first knit the join in the alpaca stole. Or rather, I thought about it, decided that it was hard and I was tired, and just kept going.

That gave me this:

It's not horrible, but there's a definite join between those two patterns. They don't flow into one another; they collide.

And so, I pulled back. Stitch by stitch, very carefully.

Have I mentioned that alpaca handspun felts to itself while you knit? Very soft yarn, very fuzzy. I think understand why people complain about knitting with mohair.

Every single stitch was tinked. No pulling. (Because pulling leads to felted knots, run stitches, and broken yarn. Ask me how I know.)

But, I made it back. This time, I put some thought into the join. A lot of thought, actually.

I removed a half repeat of the waving lace panel, partly to center it and partly because it was stretching more than my swatch said it would.

I took care to make sure that the vertical columns in the rick rib continued into the faggoting columns in the waving lace without awkward jogs.

It's not perfect, but it's a lot better.

I'll show you what's wrong with it (and why) next time.

But for now? Look at that join!