So Long Summer...Hello Fall

September has finally arrived and I can thankfully say so long to the summer of 2010. With a few wonderful exceptions, like my trip to the Rustic Tarts & Old Farts Knitting Gathering back in June, the rest of this summer has pretty much been lousy. I've been working with my health care team to make drastic changes in the medications I take to manage my fibromyalgia. The end result will be very positive, but the journey has been anything but. I've been sick as a dog pretty much all summer. Add to that the excessive heat and humidity we've had here in Smoky Mountain Country and, well, I'm ready for Fall to get here and for life to get better. Much better.



When I haven't been sleeping --or not-- I've been watching sports on TV and reading novels that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf for years. My knitting output, especially in August, has been minimal. I spent July watching Braves baseball, Wimbledon Tennis, and the Tour de France. My TDF KAL project was an amazing Estonian-inspired lace shawl called Aurantium Blossom, which I knit in a delicate pink baby alpaca laceweight yarn. The lace patterning is comprised of two different Estonian flower motifs, accented by a simple leaf motif edging. Never one to leave things as is, I chose to gild the lily just a wee bit by adding pale pink silver-lined AB 8-0 seed beads to the edging. When the light hits the beads just right they look like raindrops. Beautiful!!! AB is one of the prettiest shawls I've knit to date.

Inspired by the stunning outcome of AB, I cast-on another shaped Estonian Lace shawl, Echo Flowers, the last week of the TDF. Having mastered the 3-into-9 stitch flower cluster I figured I could whip out EF in no time at all. Yeah, right. NOT! I was so sick I hardly touched my knitting for 2+ weeks. I barely managed to finish EF before the start of the La Vuelta in Spain(another 3 week road cycling Grand Tour Race, another KAL hosted on Ravelry). A shawl that I could normally knit at my leisure in maybe 3 weeks took closer to 6 weeks to finish. SIGH!!! The good news is that EF is perhaps even more stunning than AB because of the wide nupp and flower border that finishes the bottom edge. Once again I used baby alpaca lace yarn, this time in a butter yellow with rosy pink heathered highlights, and added a touch of bling with a few champagne pink SL 8-0 seed beads. The shawl is blocked, but I have yet to take FO photos. Stay tuned!

In the meantime I have several knitting projects I'm working on in fits and starts. The Atlanta Braves are in the NL East pennant race and playing better. Tennis has moved on to the US Open in NYC, the Schleck brothers are cycling in the sweltering heat of Andalucia, and beginning this Saturday it's FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE! GO VOLS!!!

Summertime Knitting

Since I haven't been exactly diligent in keeping my blog up to date I thought I'd start back with a progress report (or two) on what I've been doing the past 3 or so months. First I must tell you what I haven't been doing as much of....gardening. The workload is getting to be more than this old girl can handle. I did turn the big Five-0 in June you know and I guess my age is starting to show along with the limitations of fibromyalgia. I still adore flowers though so my answer is flowering trees, shrubs, bulbs, and perennials. I think this Forever Pink hydrangea is stunning, yet it requires very little care at all. That's a plant I can dig!


On the knitting front, it's been a super lacy summer. Things started out last spring when I started knitting this gorgeous shawl as a part of the Spring KAL for the Lace Knitters group that meets at my LYS, The Yarn Haven. Each person chose a project from the recently published Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. KLE is an awesome book and this shawl, the Lilac Leaf Shawl, was perhaps my favorite design in the book. I love the leaf lace pattern and have knit it in a number of different projects, but when combined with the restrained addition of nupps (a type of cluster stitch that is characteristic of Estonian Lace) in a diamond border, it's a real winner. I knit my shawl using a luscious shade of a soft purpley pink alpaca & silk lace yarn (Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace) and US 5/3.75mm needles. I used a generous needle size for the yarn because this design was meant to be very open and airy. The finished shawl used ~1.5 balls of yarn and measured 20" x 66" which is just perfect. Everything about this shawl was a two thumbs up for me. WooHoo!


Braced by the positive experience of knitting the Lilac Leaf Shawl I next turned to a long-time WIP that had been hibernating in a basket for a seriously long time - Evelyn Clark's infamous Swallowtail Shawl. Zillions of knitters made this shawl, including many who had never knit lace before...or since for that matter. The original pattern was little more than a generous scarf with a pretty edging, but I wanted more. I wanted a big shawl...a BIG shawl. Why? Because I had discovered that the few little shawls sat in my closet and never got worn. Oh, OK. So I added many extra repeats to the top portion of the shawl, like 10 extra to be exact. The pattern called for 14 reps. The design demanded extra reps be added in groups of 5, but one set (19 reps total) wasn't big enough so I stuck it out (BORING) until I had 24 reps total.

I was already weary by this time, but when I hit the Lily of the Valley edging I kinda lost my love for the project. Knitting nupps was a huge pain in the you-know-what. Ugh. And so the shawl sat for more than a year while I found it in my heart to forgive it for being a pain and finish. I found a few helpful tricks for knitting good nupps and pushed my way through. The completed shawl used only one 2oz. ball of white Jaggerspun Zephyr, was knit on US 2.5/3.0mm needles (tiny!), and measured 30" x 60". So, after all that the shawl is a nice size, but it still isn't big. It is pretty though and I'm glad I stuck it out.