Friday, March 2, 2007

Still chugging along...

...on the Sea Silk crochet scarf. The good news is that with a wee bit over half the length completed it looks like I'll have enough to finish, and perhaps even to make it just a bit longer. As much as I love the ease of working Japanese charted patterns, especially for crochet, it's always a leap of faith for me to start a project not knowing if I'm using the right type of yarn with enough yardage to complete. I realize that the patterns contain this information, and oddly enough the familiar Arabic numerals are often used, but I've yet to work out what they mean. For instance, this pattern has -- (10) 30g -- in the header. So, is this 10 balls of some type of yarn/thread put up in 30g skeins, or ten balls for a total of 30g, or something else entirely? With knitting I'm on much more familiar ground -- I have a rough idea of how much I need for various garments in my size. Crochet is another story though. I just haven't made enough to really know average yarn usage. Ah well, that's living on the edge, Mingling Yarn style!

I'm really enjoying this yarn. The color is lovely, and the sheen from the silk is attractive. It does have that characteristic silk odor, but not oppressively so. Some folks have mentioned that they can smell the sea, perhaps due to the sea kelp content, but I think that's just the power of suggestion. Here's a closeup of the stitch detail -- I like the way the pattern is forming little hexagons.

The pattern is easily committed to memory, and it works up fairly quickly, but I'm just not devoting enough time each day to get it finished quickly. Too many other projects calling my name I suppose.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is gorgeous! What a great colorway - which is it? I did a fleec artist/handmaiden binge not long ago and have a skein fo the silken - the store owner said it wasn't much different from sea silk and a much better price. Just tempting me in my stash right now - that's a lovely pattern = I am lousy with crochet charts though - and Japanese charting? Wow! I'm impressed

Karen said...

Rebecca -- that particular colorway is 'melon' -- my only quibble with it is that I wish it had a bit more of the soft orange, but nonetheless it is lovely.