No Sense of Proportion

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. --Francis Bacon

I don't know which of my many personalities thought knitting a top with laceweight yarn and small needles was going to be an easy time, but I think we're going to have to fire that one. It is a long slog, no matter which way you look at it. I'm not sure I'll ever attempt it again.

The back was somewhat of a breeze. Maybe because I had a lace motif to keep me interested and to give me some sense of progress. This is the lace from the Butternut Scarf pattern by Anne Hanson. I made the scarf a few years ago, but I always felt it deserved to be showcased in a larger project:

I decided well against my better judgment that I should knit the front in a plain stockinette because a) I didn't want to mess around with figuring out what to wear underneath a super lacy top and b) I didn't have any better ideas. It turned out to be more difficult than I imagined.

The gauge for this project has outfoxed me from the beginning. Anything I knew to be true about gauge in lace vs stockinette just seemed to be the opposite for me this time. I’m not sure why… call it weird juju, call it fate, I dunno. Because of this, I had no idea how the front of this top was going to work, and that made me really uncomfortable. I decided to go ahead and block it partway through just so I could really see the dimensions in full. I’m really glad I did because the resulting fabric was exactly as I wanted and was exactly the size I wanted. Of course, since I had several inches of knitting to go, I ended up with this very obvious section of knitting that shows what this fabric looks like unblocked vs blocked. It’s kind of a nice example to show what blocking does for your knitting: it really is the way to transform your individual stitches into a cohesive, tangible fabric with its own behaviours and characteristics:

As much as it was a pain to knit and then re-block, I was totally in love with the resulting drape of the fabric. This yarn is a silk/linen blend, and I knew it was going to have a beautiful, swishy drape. Stitching the front and the back together was slow and tedious, but I didn't mind it so much because I was entranced by the elegant characteristics of the fabric.

And there it is: a finished Butternut Top:

The front is still a smidge on the transparent side, but nothing that a simple cami underneath won't solve. I like that the simplicity of the front panel allows me to wear a necklace over top of it:

I wanted to use a three-needle bind-off for the shoulders, but because the fabric was so flowy after being blocked, it was bunching up a lot. I kept wishing there was a version of Jenny's Super Stretchy Bind-Off  (my favourite bind-off) for specifically this case. A quick Google search later, and it turns out someone figured that out. Knitters are geniuses, I tell ya:

The back blocked out so beautifully, and the linen silk blend is simply mesmerizing:

It took me so long to knit this that I can't remember how many stitches I cast on or any of those important details. Maybe it's for the best, because like I said earlier, I can't see myself trying this again with such fine yarn and such small needles...

Except my next project is on superfine cotton and a 1.5mm crochet hook. Apparently, I have a problem with proportion... or maybe I am a sucker for punishment. We'll see how this one goes:

I've been kind of lax on the blog posts of late. I blame it on lack of energy, a leg injury, and a general sense of grumpiness that I've had a hard time shaking. I'm quietly hopeful that I'll feel more like myself as the summer ends. I am finding myself drawn to the yarn stash again and daydreaming about projects I would like to attempt. I call that a good sign. It's a good thing because, regardless of my lack of blogging mojo, my yarn shopping has not lost much of its vigour:

I'm off to make some brownies, just as soon as I unearth myself from this guy. Have a good week: