Chinese New Year is tomorrow, which means that the Year of the Dragon is ending, and the Year of the Snake is beginning...and which means that technically, I have successfully completed my design for the Year of the Dragon on time! (The sample is done anyway, even if I still have to write up the pattern).
For 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, I designed the Bunny Yoke Pullover. It was kind of a labor of love, in that I, my mother, my friend, and my friend's baby (born in March 2011) are all rabbits (born in a Year of the Rabbit), and it was fun, even if I spent way too much time fiddling with the bunny design! And it was completed, pattern and all, in fall of 2011.
Like the Bunny Yoke Pullover, the Dragon Lace Pullover also took up way too much time. I first had the idea years ago: when I saw the stitch pattern "Leaning Ladders" in one of Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries, I immediately thought that it looked like the body of a dragon. But I've been busy, so I didn't get around to designing the rest of the dragon until the Year of the Dragon arrived, motivating me to finally get to work on creating a lace dragon.
Among the tags I have for blog post content are "Design Process" and "Problems;" can we all just assume that the latter goes with the former? In this case, it took me a number of tries to figure out how I wanted to picture a dragon's claws and head in eyelets and decreases-- and in the end I went back to one of my first attempts for both, with a few refinements to the dragon's face. Then, I did several swatches trying to create a lace pattern that looked like stylized clouds, for around the hem of pullover; I ended up deciding they were all too busy, and scrapping that idea in favor of a simple stockinette body and sleeves. And finally, I started out with the idea of an empire waist, defined by a band of bound off stitches, with the dragon beginning slightly above the waistline, but after I had the body and back finished, I didn't like the way the vertical line of the pullover was interrupted by the waistband, so rather than re-knit the whole thing, I cut it, unraveled the waistband, and then grafted top and bottom back together. And now I am wondering if the body of the dragon should be longer betwen his last leg and his tail. Aargh!!
In the last photo, you can (sort of) see the view out my office window; Blizzard Nemo is just winding down, so hopefully our internet, phone and cable will be restored fairly soon-- in the meantime, thank goodness for generators, laptops, batteries and aircards.
I am definitely getting an early start on my Year of the Snake design! (May involve cables....)