Sea Silk

by Hand Maiden -- 70% silk 30% Seacell (a kelp derivative) available in 100g/400m skeins, hand dyed in Canada.

I had originally thought to use this for a rectangular scarf from the new Victorian Lace book. Because I only bought one skein I thought I'd knit the simplest design, which was the one closest in required yardage to what I had. I wasn't happy with how it looked though -- The colors that were so glorious in the skein seemed very insipid and blah.

Since I'd just gotten a few new Japanese crochet/knit books, I thought I'd see how it worked up in a simple crochet stitch. This stitch pattern gave me stronger blocks of color instead of an overall pastel look which I thought the knitted swatch had. So, crochet it is. This particular pattern is worked from one end to the other, then a ruffled edging is added to the beginning, to match the ruffled end.

I have been very pleased with the pattern books that I've gotten from YesAsia . Even though I don't read a word of Japanese the patterns are easy to follow because they are all graphed out using Symbolcraft. The only problem I have is figuring out just how much (and what type) yarn is called for in each project. Most likely I would never be using the yarn called for, but it would be nice to have a better idea of the weight/fiber/yardage of the yarn used so that I can substitute more easily.