Pieces of Lotus

While I haven't had much to say about Lotus, it has not been because I haven't been working on it, rather because there is only so much that one can say about largish-pieces of white stockinette on tiny needles.   Well, I can say one thing: it went much faster than I expected, because the fronts are quite tiny!  I significant portion of the width in front is made up of the crochet lace edging, so the fronts take almost no time to knit at all (and are actually kind of fun with the shaping on both sides), even on the tiny needles.

Now that I have knit three pieces, I have more insight into the Fine Milk Cotton.  If you are the sort of person who is driven crazy by slightly uneven tension here and there, this yarn is not for you. I am not that sort of person, but even I could notice the places where the tension on the yarn I was carrying was not quite the same as it was in other places.   Will this make one whit of difference to someone seeing me wear the finished garment?  I doubt it, unless the viewer is another very very detail oriented knitter.    And since I was aware of some of the less pleasant behaviors of cotton yarn before I started knitting Lotus, I'm not particularly disturbed by the little flaws I see that are of this nature.

While the yarn makes a nice fabric, knitting with it can be a bit fussy.  It defines "splitty".  I was still able to knit a lot of this by touch, but if you're using sharp tipped needles you may find this yarn more frustrating.  And if your needles have any, even slight burrs or splinters, this yarn is going to catch on it.  Metal needles may be the best call.  I ended up using my Inox needles because I just couldn't find an Addi Turbo of the right size in my needle stash.

My quibbles about the yarn aside (I provide the details more so that others will have a bit of a review of the yarn, not really to discourage the knitting of it, more to prepare) I do like the fabric.  Even if I do have to make sure my hands are clean when I'm creating it (ah, the joys of light colored yarn!) and avoid eating anything greasy or dark colored!

I'm moving on to the sleeves now -- and this is where the fun begins, since the crochet edging is created and then the stitches are picked up from the edging for the body of the sleeve.  While I've knit crochet edges before, none have been as elaborate as the one in this garment, so this should really work out my crochet chops -- especially since the Rowan instructions use the English definitions of the stitches (no surprise, given where the publication is produced) and I will have to be constantly translating back into the American definitions when I follow the instructions. 

So far, so good. I'm happy with the progress I've made, and I'm happy to report that I've run into no problems in the instructions (at least not for the garment in my size).  Now I just need to find a 2.5 mm crochet hook...