My new love...broomstick lace!

I've been experimenting with variations of the broomstick lace pattern. I can't help it. I love trying different multipliers and changing things up a bit. I was working the basic 4 loop stitch but with each row I finished the more irritated I became. It was floppy and the loops looked stupid. I wanted a sturdier finished product, one that could withstand multiple washings without wearing out.

I decided to try a 5 loop, but that still didn't do it for me. I went up to 8 loops and wow. I really liked how it looked. I should have taken a picture before I dismantled it. For the pattern I made for the main part of the blanket I used 7 loops because I'm weird and need patterns to be based off of odd numbers and primes. Don't ask, can't help it don't know. Anyway, I can't show you a picture of this yet because it is a gift for someone. Ahem. But, once the gift is given you will all enjoy basking in the glory of it because it is freaking gorgeous.

I was messing around with a new pattern for a shawl using broomstick lace. I finally got the pattern the way I wanted it. My first few attempts ended up loses stitches somehow (still can't figure out how that happened), but the newest is awesome. It's pretty, delicate and it goes really fast. Here's a picture of the tester I did in some lame white baby yarn:



I love the definition of the stitches and how the openings make a pattern as well as the stitches themselves. This makes me happy.

This, however, doesn't translate through boucle AT ALL. This is/was the boucle shawl's beginning few rows. (beautiful yarn, really)



The pattern doesn't translate at all. It looks like crap. So, lesson learned...if you care about stitch definition, even in the slightest, don't use boucle yarn. I've found that cotton yarn looks fabulous using the pattern though, so guess I'm using that.
I'm working on many, many, many projects at the moment. I have to finish some of these to make room for many more. :)