Dorothee
Well, it looks like my lace
project, Dorothee, has expired before it even began.
Apparently, the uneven snags in the yarn are actually intentional.
Louisa Harding wrote me a nice note
back saying that my yarn is not actually defective, so there will be no
replacements. She urged me to just “get over” the ragged texture of the knitted
lace and enjoy!
If I were an inexperienced knitter, I would probably just go on knitting with the Merletto yarn and try to convince myself that it was okay, because Louisa Harding told me so. But, having used high-quality Rowan, Handmaiden and other yarns for years to make lace, ranging all the way from Kidsilk Haze to 4-ply Cotton and Seasilk I know how important it is to make lace with yarn that offers some kind of stitch definition. Look at the contrast between these two photographs: The first, on the left, is lace knitted in Rowan 4-ply cotton:
See
how clear the lace pattern is that I had labored over? The second, on the right, is my lace
swatch knitted in Merletto yarn. As lovely as the sparkle of the yarn is, the snarl of fuzzy linen strands woven into the fiber disguises the texture of the lace, producing a strange, lumpy fabric.
The worst, for me, is the random fibers that hang off the finished fabric in little snags, looking as if I tore a few threads in the door.
I see that I am not alone in my concerns
over the Merletto yarn’s
stitch definition. Another Ravelry user wrote, “I had major
problems with this yarn. I purchased it to make a little pullover sweater. I
thought the stitch definition was extremely poor. I was very unhappy with the
way my swatch looked and I swatched in stockinette as well as a moss stitch. Luckily the yarn shop
owner offered to give me a credit for the yarn I had purchased. I would never,
ever puchase this yarn again - for anything.”
It
was helpful for me to read that comment, which validated my own
experience. Merletto has a fairly high rating
on Ravelry right now, which tells me that some people
are enjoying the yarn. It was because of Merletto’s high rating that I bought the yarn,
sight-unseen. Perhaps other people are having great experiences with
the yarn. Ultimately, all that matters to me, is that
the yarn doesn’t work for MY purposes. Over time, as I gain more confidence
with my knitting, I’ve started to value my own process more. I mean, I used to get really attached to a project, and push
myself to “crank it out” and finish it so I could go on to the next thing. I
suppose all that hyperactivity was about proving to myself that I could knit,
or something. Now I see my knitting as more of a craft. My goal is to create
beautiful garments that fit me, and that means that I see myself as a
craftsperson. Valuing my own work in this way, I simply am not willing
to invest my time in creating something of low quality.
If I’m going to knit lace, I want to knit lace that has good stitch definition
so that my beautiful pattern is visible without a magnifying glass!
So, Dorothee, as a project, is dead for the purpose of the Knit a Long. I simply don't think I have the capacity to knit 4 sweaters in 3 months, and I promised myself, no new yarn until I finished 3 projects from stash. I did compromise by buying one ball of lana oro in the hopes that I can still make a lace project for the Knit A Long for a cost of less than $20. But I am consoling myself for the Merletto debacle by knitting Paisley with the truly scrumptious yarn, Kidsilk Haze. The Kidsilk Haze is doubled luxuriously to form a DK weight for my cowl-necked sweater, Paisley.
What could be more pampering to the knitter's hands than this?
I can’t wait to get this sweater off the needles and wear it, but the texture
of the knitted fiber is so scrumptious that I’m having a fantastic time just
holding it between my fingers. The wonderful experience I’m having with my tried and
true yarn, Kidsilk Haze, versus the frustration I’ve
experienced from my first Louisa Harding
yarn just reinforces my feeling that the best way to produce predictable
knitting successes, time and again, is to take a leaf out of KristenLynne’s book, and consistently knit with a stable of well- known, high quality yarn. Perhaps there are some high-quality Louisa Harding yarns out there that people depend on, again and again. Until I find one I can trust, I plan to stick to my old friends.