Lace Hem Band Competed

Stage one is complete:

The lace hem band is finished. I gave the piece a "half block" (I wet it but didn't bother to pin it out.) I just wanted a rough idea of what it would look like and of the size. It measures a little long but it's in the ballpark. I expect to lose length when I properly pin it and stretch it widthwise.

I like the leaf pattern and leafy ruffle. It might sound funny to say that when I've seen the coat and already know I like it. But it's easy to see the whole in a picture in a magazine without seeing all the individual parts. Like, for instance, I don't actually like the extra half leaf at the beginning of the border (bottom-most right leaf in picture above). I can tell already that that part is not going to hang right no matter how well I block the ruffle. But it's at the very beginning, so there's not much I can do about it.

Here's a closer up:

The part on the top of the photo will have to get some carefully detailed blocking. I won't be able to lay it flat so I think I'll have to do it bit by bit on the ironing board. We'll see how that goes...but that's months off! I don't have to worry about it right now.

I had some trouble casting off the lace loosely enough until I remembered reading about some kind of yarn over bind off. I didn't bother going to look for it online, but just experimented on my own. This is what I came up with:

You can also do a yarn over on every other stitch only, and the tension will be between a regular bind off and doing the yarn over on every stitch. I think doing it every stitch would be too loose for most applications. You may recall that I started this lace strip with a provisional cast on so I could go back and bind off the stitches later. There would be no way to cast on stitches as evenly and be able to adjust the tension without taking out a lot of knitting. (If the cast off isn't right you can easily take it out and adjust it--I've did it several times in this case.)

Up next? I have to pick up stitches along the straight edge and start knitting up the skirt. But I'm waiting for the right size needles to arrive. (Remember I ordered 40 cm length instead of 40 inches?) I ordered new ones a few days ago, so they should here soon!