Be Still my Heart

The anxiously awaited silk (from Sharon Miller, to do her Wedding Ring Shawl) finally arrived yesterday:



It's even skinnier (technical term) than I remembered.

I've already done some swatching (gasp!) but I can't actually remember what I did. I think I used 2mm needles and also 2.5mm. I've decided to start with the 2.5mm Addis, simply because I happen to have them handy and I just can't wait to get going.

I cast on the 247 stitches using a waste yarn cast on. There are various methods of doing this and I've tried many of them. They all have more or less the same effect but the one I use tends to be easier to "unzip" than the others.

Then I did the six rows garter stitch:



It is very skinny but the silk is beautiful to work with - surprisingly strong for such a skinny yarn; smooth, so it slips through the fingers; all in all, it has a lovely feel.

I don't think the project is looking great at the moment:



I had the devil of a job getting the red cotton markers to stay where they were put - they kept slipping out of the fabric. I know this will get better as there is more fabric there for them to cling on to.

I don't wish to put the mouth on it but the pattern is, so far, not too difficult. You do have to be very careful with the double yarnovers, which need to have a knit and a purl worked into them on the following row. In fact, Sharon Miller suggests doing a single YO and just working twice into it on the following row. I thought I might as well take her advice, since she obviously knows what she is talking about.

Here's the pattern, just starting to appear:



and here's a close-up of the same: