The Nuvem Ta-dah

Nuvem FOPATTERN: Nuvem by Martina Behm - Ravelry notes: here
YARN: Garnstudio Drops Lace (70% Alpaca/ 30% Silk) #7120, light grey green
TOOLS: 3.5mm circular needles with longest cable available & 7mm crochet hook

This post has been a very long time coming. The project began (with some uncertainty) back in June, and I have to tell you there were many times I almost gave up on it, but I'm SO glad I didn't because it is absolutely the most versatile and scrumptious thing - big enough to wear as a wrap, sufficiently compact to fold over as a scarf.

This is a great pattern, especially considering it produces a ginormous stocking stitch shawl with no purling... but it did become quite monotonous. Whilst I was very very glad to get it off the needles, it's nice enough that I'm already considering another, so it can't have been that bad. Here are a few of my observations which I hope will be useful for anyone planning to make it.

Drops Lace is considerably thinner than the Wollemeise Lacegarn used in the pattern. To make another of these I'd certainly use 4ply which should be easier to work with and quicker to knit. These stitches were really small and prone to splitting on my very sharp needles which meant that I needed to pay more attention than one might imagine on a knit of this type. Having said that, the result is a finished object with lots of drape and movement and which feels amazingly soft.
The pattern uses two circular needles, and that really wasn't good for me on this project, causing horrible ladders between the needles. This may have been at least partially due to the weight of the needles against this extra-fine yarn. Once I switched to a single circular needle, there was no problem, so in future I'd knit with just the one long needle. I used my two longest KnitPro cables (100cm) and joined them to make one super-sized cable, but even so the stitches were crammed around it for much of the project - this is itself was time consuming as I had to stop-start each time I needed to move stitches around the cable. It would also have been better with wooden tips - I didn't have a pair of tips in the right size - as this yarn was incredibly slippery on metal. Combined with the massive stitch count this was a disaster waiting to happen and a number of times, several stitches had to be rescued with the aid of my trusty miniature crochet hook.

After starting a standard cast off and it taking FOR-EVER to do a small section, I switched to a crochet bind off which had it finished on Friday evening.

The yarn is lovely if you can get past it's tendency to split. You'll notice the colour looks different from photo to photo which is an accurate representation - the colourway is 'light grey green' and changes from silver to green to blue depending on the light and the angle you look at it. It's a perfect mix of silk and alpaca, soft and squishy but not too silky.
Nuvem - unblocked, straight from needles
Straight from the needles in poor artificial light (from unflattering, low angle!!!)
It still needs washing and blocking, but not until after it's been worn tonight - we are going out to celebrate D's birthday, and it's ever so chilly - a lightweight snuggly thing will be just perfect, don't you think?

12 comments

  1. Oh my! What an accomplishment--and well done you for sticking with it. Enjoy your evening wrapped up in it!
    *smiles*

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  2. that's lovely, well done!

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  3. Love it - hope it is as lovely to wear as it looks!

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  4. It must feel so exhilarating to finally change this from a WIP to an FO! And to finally be able to wear this around you? Woo hoo for you, Sarah!

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  5. Looks absolutely wonderful! All those stitches. Such patience!

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  6. So pretty, it looks big cozy hug of wool! I absolutely adore the colour. Love!

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  7. Well worth the time, patience, AND endurance.

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  8. looks totally amazing you are so talented.

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  9. This is so absolutely gorgeous! Wow!

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  10. Thank You! I was going nuts worrying about the ladders. I'm switching to a single needle now.

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