I was looking for something to make as a present for a friend, but I was short of inspiration. I searched Ravelry for her name (sometimes you find something great this way!). Up popped something I already favourited: the Lilli Pilli Wrap (Ravelry link) by Ambah O’Brien (Designer’s site).
I love the combination of modern and traditional, the delicate lace with the robust bias stripes. Its moment had come.
I’d been wanting to try Sirdar Country Classic, since I loved Sirdar Snuggly 4 ply so much. I’d already added some to basket in a browsing trip a few weeks back. So I went back to that, and after much deliberation, and looking at other people’s projects in Ravelry with the relevant colours, chose teal (runner up: navy) and mint blue (runner up: duck egg) for the stripes, and burgundy for the lace.
Truth be told, I had already picked out the two blues. I spent a recent evening obsessing over making a houndstooth scarf in these colours. It still might be on the cards – they look great together. Or perhaps I should give the runners up a try? Anyway, I digress…
The yarn feels like a soft cotton, and is prone to splitting. On the plus side it’s so smooth, and the stitch definition of crisp which is working really nicely with the garter stripes of petite stitches. I love the colours, the teal almost glows and the mint blue is subtle and a lovely complement to it.
The stripe rows are very similar to the bias scarves I’ve made so many of, so it’s an easy knit so far. It takes a long old time to cover distance with these fine yarns, though. Each pair of stripes takes me 15 minutes, so to complete the first section of 24 (which doesn’t sound like much!) it’ll take a total of six hours. I’m not going to think further ahead than that, lest I put myself off…
Once I’ve finished that first section, I’ll weigh the yarns and check if I’ll have enough to complete the project. I can remove some stripes later on, or add length to use up any extra yarn. If I’ll only have a tiny bit left over, no point keeping it.
Compared to other recent projects, this is going to be a long haul!
