Image details: World’s Largest Ball of Yarn, by Kirk Olson, via Flickr
My lovely friend Chloe from Sparkly Shoes are Faster Blog recommended a gorgeous lace shawl pattern to me: Damask. You can find it on Ravelry here and Etsy here. It’s stunning and the pattern appears to be extremely well written including charts and written instructions. Damask is written by a lady called Kitman Figueroa, she is kitman on Ravelry. I was chatting another lovely friend Kate from Kate’s Twirl Blog and we came up with the idea of doing a Damask Knitalong. Would you like to join us?
The shawl looks like an ideal stash busting project as it will use up a 100g skein of sock yarn if you make the medium sized shawl, so there is no breaking the yarn diet if, like me, you have lots of sock yarn in your stash. I recommend using a solid colour as the lace is quite intricate and you want to be able to see it clearly.
If you’d like to join us, just purchase your pattern through Ravelry or Etsy. It’s important that we all purchase a pattern each to support our independent knitwear designers.
I have set up a thread in the iMake Podcast group on Ravelry so people can introduce themselves, post progress photos and chat generally. Here are the links.
iMake podcast group on Ravelry
This thread will also be really helpful if you are having problems with the pattern (Chloe will be our Damask guru as she has knitted one before). I think it looks like quite a challenging knit, but Chloe assures me that it is very logical. She also recommends using stitch markers to pick out the lace repeats.
If you are on Twitter, you can tweet about your progress using the hastag #damaskkal.
There is also the iMake Facebook page – you could post your progress there.
I think that’s it, although I have never co-hosted a knitalong (‘KAL’) before, so if I have missed anything, please let me know.
Good luck!
Update: Check out Chloe’s top tips for knitting Damask and also, I posted an audioboo about the KAL…
How can I resist Martine? I wasn’t going to join in but remembered I had a skein of Easyknits Cherish in gun metal grey. This is the perfect project for this yarn. It does look tricky though, I might need some help. What yarn are you using?
Ooooh fantastic, Judi! I have just seen your comment on the Rav thread so will respond to you on there. I am using a skein of purple Malabrigo Sock which I have had for ages. I am casting on early next week and am very much looking forward to it. I think it looks quite tricky too but Chloe says it is easier than Ishbel, which I managed ok. Top tip from Chloe: use stitch markers to mark out the lace repeat. I am sure those on the thread will be super helpful
Thanks for joining us!
Martine
[...] KAL is open to all and details can be found on the iMake Ravelry thread here, and Martine’s blog here as well as twitter updates by myself, Martine and Kate using the hashtag [...]
[...] be checked out before starting, there is some great stuff in there. Martine has blogged about it here, as has Kate, here. Episode 35 of the iMake podcast also pays homage to the great Damask, or you [...]