Winging It

My friend spent a few hours working on The Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing at my house on New Year's Eve. I was quite taken with the gorgeous lace and of course wanted one of my own using some lovely Malabrigo Lace yarn that I picked up recently at Happy Knits, Portland's chutzpadik new yarn shop*.

Sadly, I found the pattern just a little too challenging for my over tired brain and I realized (after buying the patten since there's no way to see it and judge the difficulty before plunking down the cash) that I just didn't feel like working that hard right now. I browsed the other lace cowl patterns on Ravelry and had a very Goldilocks type of experience. Everything was either too complicated or too simple.

And so I decided to wing it. After making two February Lady Sweaters in the past year, I have that simple lace pattern burned into my brain so I figured I'd use that. I added in purl columns between the repeats which I enlarged toward the bottom to provide a little more chest coverage. Made up in the heavenly merino yarn I chose, it's light as a whisper and absolutely itchless. It worked up quickly, even on tiny needles, and I was so delighted with the end result that I wrote my first ever knitting pattern to share with anyone who'd like to give it a go. If you do give it a try, please let me know of the pattern makes sense.

I know, I know, this is blurry. I am not so good with the self portraits. I'll try and replace this with something lovelier soon.

*Chutzpadik is Yiddish for .... ballsy. I can think of no better description for a new business that opens just 2 blocks from one of Portland's oldest yarn shops. Because I've never had a good experience in that well established shop, I was more than a little tickled at the audacity shown by Happy Knits and I look forward to visiting that beautiful shop as often as my wallet permits.