Finally, something finished around Chez Knitting Doctor! This came off the blocking board this morning. We had a bit of a discussion about whether it was acceptable for John to take the photos while he was still in his bathrobe, but once we got past that, it was blog-ready.
What do you think? I even put on lipstick for the event. Per his request, we have no photos of John in his bathrobe.
Project Details:
Started: Um, how to answer that. I started a plain ribbed scarf with this yarn way back in 2008. It sat in UFO-ville for a very long time. I dragged it out earlier this year, didn’t feel the ribbed scarf love, and ripped it all out. I found the Baktus pattern and started over with that in February of this year.
Finished: Officially this morning. I finished the knitting on it last week, and washed and blocked it this weekend.
Pattern: Lacy Baktus. The pattern for the lacy version is on the Flickr page.
Yarn: Butternut Woolens Silk Garden. The color name is Blue Flax. It’s a 50-50 merino silk blend, and you can’t get it any more. I should have bought this stuff by the truckload. It’s a DK weight, and just the softest, squooshiest stuff you can imagine. This was 252 yards per skein, and I used two of them.
Needles: Size 5.00mm straight needles from my faux tortoiseshell collection.
For: Me
What I learned: Sometimes you have to experiment a little to get the right pattern-yarn combo. This yarn would have been totally wasted in a plain ribbed scarf. This is a pretty versatile pattern. You start with one of the corners and four stitches, knit and increase along one side until you’ve used half your yarn, then decrease till you have four stitches. I learned that being cocky, as usual, is a recipe for ripping. I knit till I’d used what I thought was half the yarn, started decreasing, and ran out, had to rip out half the knitting and start over. You can use any weight yarn with this pattern, and it works well with sock yarn, especially in the plain version without the lace holes. If you wanted to make a bigger shawl with this pattern, I’d probably recommend doing the increases and decreases at a more rapid rate. This one measures just a little over 8 feet long, and 22 inches down the center spine. If you did a full size shawl with this, it would have 10 foot tails.
Check out the Ravelry pages for the lacy version and the original to get an idea of what you can do with this pattern.
I’m more than happy with this one. I predict that this will be worn often. I also predict that this will not be the last Baktus around here. This would be a great pattern for those hand spun skeins that are accumulating in the stash!
It’s lovely! And I’m feeling deprived that I can’t feel how squooshy wonderful it is.
LOL about John’s bathrobe concerns!
hehe- just knowing that Hubby took these (lovely) pictures in his robe is enough to put a smile on my face!
Wow! It’s great. I am having feelings of severe shawl knitting deprivation. This has made it lots worse. Have to get a few pesky UFO’s done first. Beautiful shawl, beautiful picture of you.
Absolutely lovely & the exact same color as the socks I am currently knitting. They too are causing a “why didn’t I buy tons of this yarn when it was still available” moment. I am knitting them in Cotton Socka which is the softest cotton blend sock yarn I’ve ever used (so many of them seem to have the texture of a Brillo pad). The wool & cotton take the dye differently so it has an almost semi-solid look to it.
Absitively posolutely beautiful!
Bathrobe? Shocking!
So pretty…and so is the shawl! *smile* Good for you to finally finish it. I know what a relief it is to move it from “UFO-ville” to your closet. So what are you going to knit next?
Wow! That’s big! and it’s beautiful.
It looks like you have the perfect combination there – and so pretty!
It is gorgeous!
LOVE the yarn! It is a beautiful color and looks great on you as well! And the visual images of John in his robe makes me smile!. Looks like I will have to add this one to my ever growing queue of shawls….
Beautiful! The scarf is nice, too 🙂
It’s really beautiful! Gorgeous yarn, simply lovely pattern. I’m so glad you finished it, even after all the ripping. 🙂
I love it!
And tell John to quit being such a killjoy!!!
Beautiful!
really stunning
and that pattern looks perfect for those single skeins.
I’m SO behind on my blog reading, but how lovely to finally check in and see your fabulous Baktus. It’s beautiful, and you look wonderful in it. It’s a great color for you. I made one this winter, but haven’t tried the lacy version yet.
That color looks wonderful on you. Beautiful wrapped around your neck like that. Would not have thought to wear it that way.