If I finish a few...

...lace shawls, then maybe I can start some new ones, right??? Well, that's what I'm hoping. In the last week or so I finished two lovely lace shawls, Haruni and Trachtentuch B. Both shawls are crescent-shaped triangles knit from the top down with stunning wide leafy edgings. With my love for lace doilies and such, knitting shawls with similar characteristics really float my boat. Hence, I loved knitting both of these shawls.


I started the Haruni Shawl last March when the peach tree in my back yard was in full bloom. I bought the yarn a couple of years ago from an Etsy shop called Prairie Daisy Homespun -- a merino laceweight in lovely shades of pink and pale spring green called Peach Blossom. With those colors and that name I couldn't pass it up! With my tree in blossom I just had to cast-on a shawl with my peach tree yarn and Haruni was calling my name. I normally would not use a handpainted or variegated yarn to knit a lace pattern with such a statement edging, but the overall lace patterning of the shawl body helped persuade me to try it out. While I would definitely use a solid or semisolid for this pattern the next time I knit it, I do love how my lovely pink Haruni turned out. Sometimes "rules" are meant to be broken!




I broke no "rules" when it came to knitting a very traditional German Trachtentuch. this lovely shawl is a vintage design of Erich Engeln, who created numerous lovely lace patterns for tablecloths, doilies, and other home goods in the mid-to-late 20th century in Germany. This is the second, or "B" version, of the trachtentuch patterns, which I chose to knit in a heavy laceweight cashmere cotton blend yarn. The original design was knit in a fine weight cotton thread, and was scarf-sized, but I wanted something just a bit larger. I was the intrepid leader of the Knitalong group in the Small Shawls forum on Ravelry, where a number of knitters created beautiful versions of the two shawl designs. It was rather quite fun!



I totally love the leafy edging on my German shawl, though blocking such a detailed-shaped shawl is a bit tricky for those who haven't done it before. I did take photos of the process and will try to post a quickie tutorial shortly. Meanwhile I am moving on. I have an Elizabeth Zimmerman classic Pi shawl and Eugene Beugler's new Circle of Life shawl in progress, and will be casting on a new shawl tomorrow morning as a part of the 2010 Tour de France KAL over on Ravelry. FUN!!!

Saturday Summary

It's been more than a week since I managed to gather my wits and post an update about the goings on here at beadntat. There have been distractions...things like illness, visiting relatives, Ravelry, and yes, even knitting! But the week-long migraine and related temperamental tummy have chilled out, the visitors have gone home, and I'm starting to return to life. Give me a couple more weeks, a little more daylight and warm, sunny spring days, and I should emerge from my winter cave happier than a groundhog :-)


When last I posted, I had gleefully announced the completion of my Mystic Waters Shawl (MWS). Of course no lace shawl is truly completed until it has been properly blocked. That big event happened last Wednesday night. The operative word here is BIG as my MWS ended up being very big. Note in the first picture that the top edge of the shawl was wider than the length of the full-sized sheet I used as my blocking surface. The final measurements were 106" across the top and 51" from top to tip. This was my first experience with cash/cotton yarn and I found it left a fine purple lint on the white sheet. I assume this is due to the cotton content. That same cotton also makes this shawl especially cuddly next to the skin. This was well-tested as I wore the shawl over my PJs around the house the week I was sick. I predict this one will see much use!

I wore the MWS over my sweatshirt to the Friday Night Knitting Club at The Yarn Haven last night. It was a big hit!!! Sandy even took pictures :-) I confess it's pretty cool to see folks who know knitting really appreciate the beauty and complexity of my lacework. It's my kind of endorphin rush :-)

So, with a huge project finished I've spent a ridiculous amount of time debating what my next move should be. The problem is there are too many great projects to choose from and I want to knit them all. But recent heated discussions about Herbert Niebling and his unique designs published mostly in Germany in the late 20th century really stimulated my interest in knitting doilies and other table laces. I've been collecting patterns, but didn't feel quite ready to break into my stash of tatting threads and give it a go. But, with a migraine coming and going last week I figured I'd try out a sweet little doily designed by one of the gals on Ravelry & Lace Knitters. Called Little Flowers, this doily was just the right size for a first doily project and it was charted and the instructions were in English. Call it 3 stars! I cast-on late one night and had it finished the next night. Sweet!

I knit Little Flowers using some very nice Opera 10 from my stash and 2.5mm dpns. I didn't have a 16" or 24" circular, so I ended up using 8 needles. It was logical for the 8 point motif, but that's a lot of needles to worry about falling out. In the end, I felt the doily looked a little dense to my eye. In the future I will use a 2.75-3.0mm needle for size 10 crochet cotton, or better yet--go down to a finer thread. I don't care for size 10 thread in tatting...I think I will ultimately feel the same way for knitted lace as well.


Energized by the success of the Little Flower doily, I had to jump right in a knit a second doily. I decided to thumb through my vintage pattern booklets and see what I could find. I hit a tattered gold mine in a book called Sparkling White Doilies, a book containing patterns for crocheted, hairpin lace, tatted, and knit doilies. while most were crocheted, there were 2 knitted doilies in the book. There was a small problem though--I had complete patterns but no pictures because the back cover was missing. This extra challenge added to the intrigue so I decided to knit a "Surprise" doily. I did use a finer thread this time, Cebelia 20, and the same 2.5mm needles--a perfect combination! I found a 32" circular needle and "magic looped" this doily after I had the first several rows knit on dpns. This combination worked perfectly and I ended up with a very pleasant surprise. I'm totally hooked on knitting doilies..there will be more in the future :-)

The Angel is Done!

I'm pleased to announce the completion of the Angel Pearls Beaded lace Scarf, my 1st FO of 2008. I really thought I would be done in no more than a week, but a few interruptions for things like Christmas and another unplanned hospital admission for my Father sort of delayed things a bit. Well, that and the fact that I was so afraid my scarf would be too short that I kept adding extra repeats of the main chart. The pattern called for 10-11 repeats and I finally stopped after 15. You know how the story goes: you finish knitting a repeat and you try the thing on to see if it's long enough OR you grab a tape measure and run the numbers. You hmmm a bit and decide it's too short and knit another repeat...and another...and another...and well, you get the idea :-)

At 14 repeats I figured I was OK, but I decided to knit one more just to be sure. Well, after a nice warm bubble bath to get the machine oils and grime out of the yarn, the finished scarf headed to the stripped down "blocking bed" (formerly known as the guest bed). I gave the scarf a nice block, but not as severe as I typically stretch my lace. I was concerned about the fine, cobweb wt fibers breaking, so I was gentle. From previous experience I have learned that alpaca does not hold a crisp, sever block anyway and I'm thinking a gentle block has a better chance of keeping it's structure. We shall see. Anyway, I was so surprised to find my finished scarf measured 77" long and 6.5" wide. That's at least 10" more than I anticipated and I'm so pleased! By the time I add the beaded tassels to the points it'll be 80+ inches! Cool!


The finished shawl used only about 40g of yarn. After some fancy calculating I used roughly about 236 yds. of the triple stranded yarn. That's pretty much spot on with what Sivia used in her original scarf out of Kid Silk Haze, so that's also good. Oh, I forgot to mention how I solved them problem of the HOLE. Some careful scrutiny revealed that I had dropped a yo stitch from a k2tog. After playing with it a bit I realized I could do a repair job that would be essentially invisible, thus avoiding having to tink/frog back the better part of a repeat. So after casting off, I went back with a single strand of the cobweb fiber and caught the yo loop up to the next row where it belonged, weaving the yarn tail before and after the catch-stitch. You can't even see it and I'm happy. Those of you who know me well know that I could never just leave a boo-boo like that. If I couldn't have made the invisible repair I would have frogged back for sure :-)

Cross another one off the list

Yup, you can cross another WIP off the the list and move the Little River Socks (Panda Cotton-Fall Herbs) to the FO list. I only have one pair of UFO socks left to finish (Christmas Daddy, I promise they'll be done by Christmas this year). I took some pics but they're still in the camera so you'll just have to wait for that "footsie" pose. NBD, really, I promise as this pair was the ones where the yarn clashed with the lace patterning. But they're still comfy and the right colors for immediate wear, and that's what counts right now.

Having completed 2 pairs of socks this week, I can now cast-on some new socks from all this amazing yarn I've stashed over the course of the summer. The first pair up was also dictated by my need for socks to go with brown pants and shoes, so I cast-on a pair of Cookie's Monkey Socks published in Knitty last winter. I'm using the new Araucania yarn that Sandy gifted me and I have to say, the yarn and pattern are a perfect match. That sounds so simple and obvious, but with all the handpainted, space-dyed, and/or otherwise interesting, non-solid-colored sock yarns out there, making a perfect match has become anything but simple. One only has to surf the web a little to see countless pairs of hand-knit socks, including the ones I just finished, where the match-up, er, well... just didn't match.

So I cast on and knit the ribbing and a couple of pattern repeats on Thursday night. This morning I tinked back about 3 rows to fix mistakes (what, me count????) before forging on and I'm into the gusset decreases. That's what I call a pretty fast knit! I love the lace pattern, both how it looks and how easy it is to both knit and remember. However, the cuff has more dimpled textured than the Geosphere at EPCOT, which means these socks will require proper wet-blocking. Note to self-find tutorial for how to make own sock blockers from children's wire clothes hangers (I hope I bookMarked that link way back when).

As if casting on one pair of socks wasn't enough, no, I cast-on another pair last night. This time I grabbed the ultramarine Panda Cotton and tried out a Mystery Sock pattern Mona Schmidt (of Embossed Leaves Sock fame) is doing on her blog this month. the pattern has some interesting design elements, like casting on 80 sts and knitting the ribbing on size 0 needles, then decreasing to 60 sts and going up to sz 2 ndls for the lace cuff. The pattern is interesting and I'm learning new tricks, but this yarn has a ply of shiny bamboo twisted around a core of wool so it splits and snags easily--not good for fiddly lace on tiny needles. I've put this sock in time-out for the moment while I think about it, but I suspect I'll frog this one and go for a different yarn choice.

Friday was a time-out from knitting day as I went to my favorite fine craft show of the year--the Foothills Craft Guild Fine Crafts Marketplace. I've gone almost every year since I've been back home and I've gotten to where I know quite a few folks now. I was there for 3.5 hrs and it wasn't nearly long enough top see everything. Reg, teh great gal that she is, allowed me to reneg on my promise to do a yarn shop hop with her this weekend, so I was able to afford to buy a few treasures to bring home. I skipped the blown glass ornament (Mark Sanders) that I've been collecting and opted for some exquisite lampworked beads that are covered in tiny flowers. Stunning! They had my name written all over them. I also bought another shawl pin from a silversmith out of Crossville. I love the one I bought from her last year and I wanted another one to diversify my collection. For the other purchases I was helping Santa, so mum's the word :-) Once again, I'll try to get some pics up in the next day or so.

Saturday was for recovery---I was *so* exhausted after being on my feet all the time at the Craft Show. so what did I do??? Watch football, of course! It wasn't hard to be glued to the TV seeings as my beloved TN Vols were playing their best so far this season and they whooped up on Arkansas and their Heisman hopeful Darrin McFadden. The defense was so good I was speechless. Where were they the last 2 months???? We've got 2 tough games (Vandy, Kentucky)to finish out the season and earn a trip to the SEC championship, but we can do it. Amazing. Truly amazing. (The Diet Coke, remote control, recliner, and knitting are all ready and waiting :-) Go Vols!!!

Happy, Very Happy

What can I say? I'm happy, very happy with how my Icarus Shawl turned out. My anxieties over the potential conflict between the lace pattern and multicolored yarn proved to be unfounded as in the end, they came together quite nicely. Thanks to Kat and Regenia for encouraging me to stop overanalyzing and just knit. I have this issue with obsessing over every little detail-- it gets in the way of a good project every now and then (sigh). Fortunately I got over it quick with Icarus and I have a fabulous shawl to show for it. Knitting *is* good therapy ;-)

I took a bazillion pictures of my Icarus after casting-off--more than I've taken of any other knitting project. This is a side effect of being a knitter on the net. I need pictures for everyone and everywhere...Blogger, Flickr, Ravelry-it's gotten outta control! No longer are just plain photos of the shawl being blocked or draped on something sufficient; no, they must be artistic! I traipsed, shawl and camera in hand, from the bedroom to the family room, to the deck, and out to the garden in the quest for the perfect photograph. Knitter, set director, art director, and photographer all-in-one!

The set director really liked the neighbor's split rail fence. the photographer, though, thought the late afternoon sun was a bit much and would wash out the colors. The art director loved the ficus trees under the deck, but it was a bit shady and the wind was blowing--good for models with long hair but not so good for gossamer lace shawls. Thankfully everyone agreed the deck rail showed off all the best attribute of the shawl. (Multiple personalities anyone? LOL)

The final statistics for my Icarus shawl:
Size: 84" x 42" (big, but light as a feather)
Knitting time: 28 days
Yarn: JKnits Lace-a-licious "Wyoming" (100g used, 13g left over). I totally "heart" this yarn and will definitely use it again. It's a fine lace weight yarn to be sure, but it was beautifully spun without slubs or clumps of fiber and there were no knots or noticeable tie-offs in my hank. I bought mine at the Loopy Ewe, an online retailer I highly recommend.
Needles: US3 (3.25mm), KnitPicks Classic Circular 32" to start, switching to Addi-Lace 47" once I reached 400sts.
Final st. count: 571sts (I needed all 47" of those Addis!)
The last Baaa, baaa: Ewe-Nice approves! 'Nuff said :-)

It's Done

It took me almost 2 hours to cast-off all 550+ sts late Wedsnesday night. I was practically cross-eyed by the time I finished the row, but my Icarus shawl is done. I only added one repeat and I probably could have added another as I had 13g of yarn left over, but as it is Icarus looks pretty big. I finished weaving in the ends today, but I didn't have the courage to do the blocking...or should I say my BACK didn't have the courage to do the job. Maybe tomorrow :-) I don't think the wingspan will fit on the guest bed, so this one will have to hit the floor in the family room. My back screams at the very thought :-(

So now it's time to figure out what to knit next. I have three 2nd socks to finish, none of which inspire me. I have several new sock yarns in my stash which are inspiring, but which pattern to knit next? There are at least a dozen on my list, and the list seems to grow at least weekly. So many great sock designs, so little time.

It was OK that I didn't have anything serious to knit on today because I spent a good chunk of the afternoon sucked into the time trap that is Ravelry. This site is so cool! I love having one place to go to find out all the nitty gritty details of my projects. Gathering and entering that stuff is time consuming, but once I'm up to date the maintenace will be simple. I still have lots to figure out and I haven't gotten into the forums yet. I'm not a big fan of the Forum format as I prefer the e-mail digest features of Yahoo Groups. The up side, Forums are much easier to deal with when there are huge numbers of people involved, as in some of the mystery KALs I've joined. The menial email volume on Yahoo is more than I can stomach, but Ravelry is much better since I can bypass things and cut to the chase. This may be especially good for the SOTS KAL as the moderator hasn't been consistent about sending out the Special Notices mail for when the clues go up, etc. It may not matter, however, as I've been rather unimpressed by the 1st two clues. It may be the way the charts have been drawn, though, so I'll wait and see what the knitting looks like before I pass final judgement. Strange charts...I don't know what program she's used, but these are the only charts I've seen where I can't really visualize what the lace looks like. It's taking the mystery thing a bit too far for me.

Finished another one

I tell you, I'm really on a roll here. It feels *good* to finally complete all these shawls I've had laying around in their partially-knit state. The latest one to come off the needles and onto the blocking bed was the Fir Cone Triangular Shawl. I cast on for this shawl a year ago, but hit the skids when it got to the sideways knit-on edging--something I had never done before. I quickly learned that edgings of this sort are a PITA to knit and they seem to go on forever. I remember setting a daily minimum of edging repeats I had to knit each day as a way to keep myself going. It did help there for awhile, but obviously not long enough. And once it got to be spring and mohair shawls were no longer needed, this one hit the UFO basket in a big hurry.


I learned several lessons from knitting this shawl. First of all, I discovered that knitting lace with fine, fuzzy mohair yarns is a lot more challenging than knitting with smooth lace yarns. I started out knitting with mohairs so I really didn't fully appreciate this aspect until later when I'd used Zephyr and merino and cashmere yarns. I also learned about the edging challenge (as mentioned above). Another lesson learned: when you get too bored with the lace you're knitting, go find another lace pattern that is compatible that you can insert so as to not go cuckoo crazy. Then call it your own adaptation and think cool thoughts about your designing abilities. Well, not too cool ;o) And I guess last, but not least, if you are going to abandon a fuzzy lace shawl into a basket for many months--put it into a sealed plastic storage bag first. The dust bunnies liked to have killed me finishing that edging and you should have seen the bath water---yikes! Pass the Allegra &/or Benedryl...quick!

So here's the scoop:
Pattern: Fir Cone Triangular Shawl
Designer: My adaptation of an original design by Fruitcake Knits
Source: fruitcakeknits.weblogs.us/fir-cone-triangular-shawl/
Yarn: Madil Kid Seta (70% Super Kid Mohair/30% Silk, 25g=210m/230 yds.) color 631 - 3 balls
Needles: Addi-Turbo US5 (3.75mm)
Finished Size: 66" x 33" after blocking
Details: I inserted a diamond motif border before the knit-on edging in my adaptation of the original pattern (sorry, the border pattern is not available)
There are more pictures of this and my other recent shawl completions on my Flickr page

MS3: Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary Mom

I finished the splish splash party Saturday night by blocking a 3rd shawl--the MS3 or Swan Lake Stole. Melanie really threw a curve ball to this summer's mystery knitalong group by designing the 2nd half of the stole in a distinctly different manner from the 1st half. Known affectionately (or not!) as the "wing", this surprise ending was the hot topic on the knitting boards for weeks. Some loved it, many hated it, most were somewhere in between. To my surprise (and perhaps Melanie's too) many couldn't stand the idea of a stole that didn't look the same on both ends. Yes, we MUST have SYMMETRY! In this era where there is so much asymmetry in contemporary fashion and in the knitting magazines, the strong objection of many KAL members was a bit fascinating. The debate was heated (not flaming, though) although I confess I skipped most of it by subscribing only to the "special notices" mail from Melanie. This year's group was just too big and the inexperienced knitter chat too overwhelming for me to enjoy reading the digests this time. Heck, the volume of mail was so much I wouldn't have had any time to knit if I read it all!


I started 2 stoles since I couldn't decide between 2 yarns/colors. Once the mystery clue with the wing was revealed, though, I focused solely on knitting the natural colored one. I plan to resume knitting the blue version (without the wing) now that the natural one is finished.

I opted to go ahead and knit the natural-colored stole as written, wing and all, but I had misgivings about how it looked. The first picture above shows the completed stole before blocking. Looking at the 2 ends side by side I just wasn't thrilled with it. I know what Melanie's intention was, but I just couldn't convince my gut to like it. Nevertheless, I reserved final judgment until after blocking. After all, blocking can do magical things for a shawl. While I didn't like the finished stole at this point, my mother thought it was wonderful. OK Mom, I know what to do with it once I finish blocking. Aren't Moms just the best thing ever? Even now, she still loves everything I make :-) BTW, Mom is modeling the stole. You wouldn't believe how old she really is...she sure doesn't look it! She didn't acquire her 1st wrinkles until after she turned 70...I'm sure glad for that gene pool!


Enough about Mom... back to the story of the stole. I soaked the shawl in my usual warm soapy water (it was filthy--as bad as ColourMart cones--go figure?), rinsed it well, and headed to the bed. My pre-bath calculations said the stole would fit on the bed, but I was wrong and the wing took a strange curve down the side of the mattress--oh well (sigh). I was trying to hurry and get her stretched because my Father was having a little cardiac episode upstairs and mother was panicking (unnecessarily, but that another story). I had a sopping wet shawl that I really didn't want to abandon lest I run the risk of ruining it, so I moved quickly. Once I got the point of the 1st end perfectly even, stretching the rest wasn't all that bad. Since it was my 3rd shawl of the day, I was pretty quick threading the wires by now. My Swan Lake Stole turned out to be bigger than Melanie's version, but I used fatter lace yarn and bigger needles so I expected this. The wing really wanted to stretch out more than both my bed and the straight line across the top would allow, so there was a spot near the join at the bottom that wasn't stretched quite as much as the rest of the piece. But in the end, the interesting blocking of the wing didn't matter at all.


I unpinned the stole on Sunday morning, still not feeling the love for the thing, and took it upstairs to my mother. She carefully put the stole on, making sure the join between the wing and the rest of the shawl was positioned on her shoulder just right. Then something magical happened. She tossed the Wing over her shoulder, just as she would with any scarf. The feather points danced around her arm creating a perfect frame for the lace of the other end of the stole. At that moment I saw what Melanie had been trying to convey to thousands of doubting knitters for weeks. The beautiful white Swan had triumphed. The stole looked fabulous and my mother was completely smitten by it. Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary Mom, it's yours!


So, the final story is:
Pattern: Swan Lake Stole (MS3)
Designer: Melanie Gibbons
Source: Pink Lemon Twist
Yarn: KnitPicks Bare Laceweight (91g used)
Needles: Addi-Lace US 5 (3.75mm)
Dimensions: 81" x 21"
Details: Knit as written, with the "Wing", beads omitted;
Time: started July 8th, finished August 24th, 21 days of actual knitting

I Love Casting Off

I love casting off... well, I do and I don't. I don't really like the *process* of casting off. You know, making sure your tension isn't too tight...or too loose, and that your stitches are nice and even. All that stuff is a royal PITA. Now, make that soon-to-be-finished project one knit on small needles with double-stranded ultra slippery silk yarn, then decide at the last minute that you need to add beads to the cast-off edge and the PITA factor just rose exponentially. *BUT* move another lace stole from the WIP list to the FO list and, well...I just love casting off!

Yes, it's a WooHoo moment: the Hanami Lace Stole is finished! The timing, of course, was perfect as the KAL group I joined to help motivate me to finish my stole is casting-on tomorrow. Does that mean I was extra motivated??? (yes, absolutely yes!) The cast-on edge of the Hanami Stole is beaded, but the cast-off edge is a ruffle that doesn't include beads. In fact, the only beads in the design were at the cast-on edge. I really didn't think my silverlined clear beads were very noticeable against the celery green of my stole, a huge disappointment as they were such a pain to cast-on with. But after knitting my ruffle, I didn't think my edge was ruffled enough -something I also blame on the yarn. The silk yarn created a stockinette fabric that curled *a lot* more than usual. I was concerned that the stockinette ruffle would also curl and not hang properly so I decided to (gasp) add beads to the cast-off edge to add weight and give some balance to the otherwise asymmetrical design. This was my first 100% smooth laceweight silk project and it's had it's challenges. Only blocking will tell the truth in the end, but I suspect this project would have been better served with a wool or alpaca lace yarn.

I guess I need to have a little "block party" as I have four lace projects in need of a bath and blocking: a small shawl, 2 stoles, and a mohair scarf. Hopefully I'll get started on all that blocking this weekend. There will be pictures forthcoming!