WIP (Almost) Wednesday 1

Apparently it is a tradition among knitting bloggers to post pictures of works in progress (WIPs) on Wednesdays.

Well, I am here to tell you that Wednesdays are terrible days to write blog entries, because I have homework due every Wednesday.  It's due at midnight, which means, guess what I'm doing with my evening up until midnight?  Guess what I say won't happen every week on Wednesday, but totally happens, without fail?

Someday, I won't be trying to work full time and go to school, but until then, here's my WIP Almost Wednesday:

Tosh Merino Light in Antique Lace - a dream!  The name of the sweater is a secret until I publish the pattern because I know there are thousands of you silently reading this blog, waiting to steal it.

This is the very first thing I've knit in lace!  It's a horseshoe lace pattern that's thankfully fairly easy to memorize and also easy to know right away (at the latest, two rows later) if you've made a mistake.  So far, the biggest mistake was not slipping on an sk2p, but I managed to fix it without having to rip it back!  I refuse to learn to crochet, but I do own a crochet hook for these exact situations.

As you can tell, it still needs a good block, ends sewn in, and buttons sewn on.  I blocked a swatch of the lace pattern, and it really opens it up.  The ends also end up looking way less lumpy.

The reason I finally got around to knitting lace was thanks to Eat.Sleep.Knit's "new to you" knit-a-long.  By knitting a project that makes me try something new, I get 1000 yards credited to my yarnathon progress!

The goal is to publish this pattern eventually.  I'm trying to work on a few extra lace details people can add on as they wish and to make the increases more symmetrical.  I learned how to do kfb's and yarn overs on the purl side, too, so I will try that on the next size that I test out.