First, let’s have the entrelac – or in this case, garterlac, as it was entrelac done entirely in garter stitch:

The pattern is Criminy Jicket’s Garterlac Dishcloth. The yarn is Lily Sugar n’ Creme in some ombre colourway or other. I can’t find the ballband, but the colours are nicer than they look in the photo. I thought the technique was rather cool, and my primary reason for doing it was to dispel the mystique of just how it actually worked. It’s cool though, and I’m glad I tried it. It should help when I get around to knitting the Forest Path Stole, which, in my not-so-humble opinion, is one of the best examples that exist to even DO entrelac. I also practiced backwards knitting, which comes in handy when working in such small sections at a time (each square is worked individually), and I learned how to do that here.

Here is a gratuitous close-up of the nubby texture of all that garter stitch:

Now, stranded colourwork. Well, I must say, it’s a lot easier than I thought thanks to a few very helpful articles. The first one I want to highlight is Sara’s article on her blog about weaving in the floats that you get on the back of this type of knitting. It’s very clever, and much easier than I thought. The second article I read was on yarn dominance – apparently in this sort of project, it does matter which yarn is carried under or over the other. The one coming from underneath is the dominant one, and is the one you want to “pop” in your project. It’s usually the foreground pattern, rather than the background colour. Nona explains it wonderfully here. Would you like to see how my Bird in Hand mittens are coming?

Isn’t it beautiful? The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, in colours Lavender Mix and Winter White. This is the smallest size, which is meant to be for an 8″ hand. My hand was 7 1/4 inches, so I thought this would be wise. I guess due to the fairly tight gauge of the project (aran/worsted weight yarn on 2.5mm/US 1 needles) and the thickness of the stranding, it brought the actual size down a bit. I did swatch, of course, but I do have a very tight, almost too-perfectly fitting mitten. I don’t know if this is a problem yet. I hope it isn’t because even though I’m finding this pleasantly easy and fun, it is an awful lot of work to go to waste.

I’m testing out some new progress bars for Ravelry – they will get fancier than that once I have time to sit down and play with the code. They’ll be so much easier to keep up to date though as I can do it directly from Ravelry instead of having to alter my sidebar code. I’m happy about that.