Cinnamon Ene

Last weekend I finished up a lovely little lace project that has been my break from gift knitting over the past few weeks.



Pattern: Ene's Scarf (Ravelry Link) by Nancy Bush, found in the book Scarf Style.
Yarn: 1 skein of Dream in Color Baby, color Cinnamon Girl.
Needles: size 5 Addi Lace circular.
Finished Size: 61.5" wingspan and 31" in height.
Mods: none.



All in all, this was a very easy project. The only tough part was the cast-on and I am pretty sure it took me three or four times to get it right. Ene is knit from the bottom up, with each right-side row shorter than the last. The designer used a knitted cast-on with the yarn held double, which provides a nice sturdy, yet stretchy, edge. Usually the nice thing about a knitted cast-on is that you don't have to estimate how much yarn you will need up front. Not so with a single strand of yarn held double. After several failed attempts to correctly estimate how much yarn the cast-on would use, let me offer a suggestion: whatever rule of thumb you use to determine the appropriate length of yarn you will need, double it. This will save you the frustration of casting on 300 out of 375 stitches and running out of yarn.



While the initial rows seemed to take forever to knit, I loved how quickly the last repeat worked up. My delight was dampened only slightly by the stress of watching my ball of yarn rapidly diminish and wondering if I was going to have to go buy a second skein in order to knit the last couple of rows. Happily, the crisis was averted and I was able to complete the shawl with a few yards left over. A word of caution: if I had used a larger needle size, I would have needed a second skein - it was that close.



Now I've got to get back to my gift knitting. Lismore is not going to finish itself.