Bought some lace weight merino

[Tonid1980]

Hiya! ... I just bought this pretty stuff

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ayphotohosting

and I really want to make a pair of socks (my first!) ... but its lace weight, and every pattern I see calls for fingering weight or greater... So my question is this... is there a big difference between fingering weight and lace weight? I would just do a swatch and make sure I have the right gauge, but I dont even know if this will be enough yarn.

I just dont want to get one and a half socks done and find out I dont have enough, Id rather make something else out of this (or just hold it and love it ) and get some other yarn for socks if this is gonna be the case...

help ???

[Calamintha]

I'm afraid to tell you that the yarn in question is not in fact laceweight. It is cobweb weight which is lighter than laceweight. Unfortunately, there are no established guidelines for laceweight yarn so the vendor is free to refer to it as laceweight even though it is actually cobweb weight.

The tip off is in the recommended needle size which is 0-2 which is typical of cobweb weight. Most laceweight yarns are usually knit with needles in sizes 4-6 for laceknitting. You would need to use this yarn doubled or possibly tripled to get something like a fingering weight out of it.

I wouldn't recommend using a laceweight or cobweb weight yarn for socks especially a first pair. Lace merino yarns are very soft and can felt from pressure. Socks made from this yarn would be soft but not very durable probably. Not to mention that you would have to use 00 or 000 needles to get a tight enough gauge. It might be all right if you double or triple strand it. But personally, I would recommend a heavier yarn for your first pair.

[Tonid1980]

Thank you for your answer Calamintha. I will just have to do something different with this pretty stuff... NO clue what... but something I guess... Will go find some fingering weight yarn later...

Im thinking Im not going to be able to make anything with the 100 grams I got... hmmm...

[Calamintha]

Well, it would probably make a very pretty scarf or wrap. You might want to take a look at the book, Victorian Lace Today. There are lots of nice patterns in there for that weight of yarn. Grumperina put several pictures of the projects from the book on her blog:

http://www.grumperina.com/knitblog/a...acement_in.htm

[Tonid1980]

I will do that...thank you again...


EDIT:

I surfed around for lace scarfs... I found one I liked but the yarn forward move makes no sense to me, so I moved on...

I ended up finding this

http://chachaknits.blogspot.com/2006...f-pattern.html


I love it...gonna go for it... WOHOO...

Will of course show it off once I get started.

[suzeeq]

When a yfwd is followed by a knit, it's a YO.

sue

[Tonid1980]

When a yfwd is followed by a knit, it's a YO.

sue

Ahhh... thank you... I understand yarn over because theres instructions here.... so then I can do this! wohoo... thanks