a sparkly notion

i have this really pretty black sock weight yarn.  it's spun from merino wool, silk, and (imagine!) sterling silver.  i intended to use it to make myself some opera-length, black fingerless gloves with a lace panel from elbow to knuckle.  they were going to be really pretty -- a way to both bring back gloves AND show off a manicure.

however.

i got sidetracked, and decided i needed a simple wrap to wear to an up-coming event.  and that yarn was beckoning.  i've been inspired by the look of the citron wrap everyone's making, particularly the ruching divided by some structure.  i wanted something lacy, but not too; structured, but not too; easy, but not too.  i experimented with 4 different simple laces and decided upon the 2 i'm using.*  the really fun part of this wrap is that the structure comes from columns of tunisian crochet worked every 16 rows.  it was actually pure laziness that led me to this.  i did not want to perform the calculations necessary to reduce the gauge, and even if i just grabbed a smaller needle and started knitting, i did not want to knit a million little stitches and 50-11 little rows.  hence, tunisian-supplied gathers.

this is a tricky fabric to capture with a camera in daylight.  but here you can kind of see the sterling silver sparkles.  they look like dust.  (click for biggie-smallness)

i am not naturally drawn toward sparkles/glitter/sequins/look-at-me stuff.  but this is very subtle, very restrained, very take-a-second-look-if-you'd-like-but-no-pressure.  i am nervous about not liking it once it's done.  but it's been a really fun experiment, combining the techniques of knitting and tunisian.

wouldn't those fingerless gloves look great with this?

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*why 2 different laces?  i wanted the edges to be bigger and rufflier than the middle panels, which i wanted to have as straight lines to complement the really square nature of the tunisian stitches.  moderate method to the madness.

or maybe i got bored...