FO Pictures

I did the washing, blocking, and writing last night but I had to wait until this morning for the light of day to snap decent pictures of the Hidcote Shawl stretched out in all her glory. Can you believe how black and mucky the wash water was? You couldn't even tell there was lots of liquid soap in the water because there were no bubbles to be seen. I've always believed that blocking lace is a magical process and this shawl was no exception. and while the lace was beautiful last night, when I went into the family room this morning and looked again in the daylight it was as if it was a different shawl. The light absolutely danced across the texture of the upper section of the shawl. I hope you can see just a bit of that effect in the pictures, although my camera can't do justice to it at all. The plain stockinette of the diamond motifs seemed almost bland in comparison to the top and bottom sections where the yarn swirls and ripples with life. It truly was a magical moment for me.

Hidcote Garden is a large shawl--large enough to wrap around my not-so-small-being and cover everything that benefits from being covered if you know what I mean. I can't sing the praises of the design enough. It was a joy to knit! And while it's not a first lace shawl project, Hidcote Garden is definitely attainable for the ambitious advanced beginner or intermediate lace knitter. And one more thing, the ColourMart cashmere that I used was an ideal choice for this shawl. I would absolutely recommend Richard's 2/28 laceweight or 4 ply cashmere for this project. You'll never wrap up in anything else more lovely or more luxurious than this!

Back Breaking Blocking

I had an extremely long, stressful day. the focus was presenting my preliminary thematic structure of my hope study to my research group for input and discussion. I wasn't happy with the themes and I got lots of feedback, but no clear answers. I think that's because there really aren't any clear answers. Hope is enigmatic so I guess it would be unrealistic to expect to come up with a nice neat package in the end. This is not nice for someone who likes nice neat packages!

So, to celebrate the exhaustion/frustration/panic what did I do? Of course, I washed, fluffed, and blocked the Hidcote shawl. It was a very yucky, mucky job washing all the machine oils out of the cashmere. It tooks 3 washes in very hot water plus 2 rinses until I felt confident I had all the grime out. Boy did the color brighten up after that!I started out the fluff process by tumble drying on the air setting for about 6-7 minutes. But the air only didn't bring out the bloom in the yarn adequately, so I followed that with 4-5 minutes on delicate. That worked.

It took 3 wires across the top and 2 on each side to accommodate the shawl. When everything was stretched and looking good my final dimensions proved to be spot on with the designer's at 44x90" Unblocked, the shawl was larger so I guess that's the difference a good fluff job can make on cashmere. I did have one catastrophe though when I didn't capture enough strands under the wires at one point on the shawl's side and the single strand snapped. Cashmere is more delicate than merino and will not take the same severe stretching. I protected the point with several other pins so it won't ravel and I'll mend it once the shawl is dry. It shouldn't be too big a deal so I'm not all that concerned.

An the Oscar goes to...

Ewe-nice for best dressed wooly sheep in a shawl! Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, after much knitting, muttering, a few vacations, and just a little tinking (wink, wink) the Hidcote Garden Shawl has danced its way off the needles.

Time of delivery: Sunday afternoon, 2:00PM EST, 25 Feb 2007.
Vital statistics: Weight 125g, Length ~1920 yds of 2/28 laceweight 100% cashmere from ColourMart,
Unblocked dimensions 45" x 98"

After posting about my frustrations with the cast-off last night, I somehow felt better so I picked up my 3.75mm crochet hook and paying carefully attention to maintaining an accurate, even tension, I did a standard knitwise single crochet cast-off. I started last night, but once I was satisfied that I *could* get it right I stopped and waited until today to finish casting-off those 500+ sts. I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment having completed this large shawl, certainly a task worthy of an Academy Award I think :-) I know Ewe-nice agrees with me!









PS. I know the pictures aren't the best, but it's the best I can do with a crummy camera. I'll post better ones once the wires arrive and I can properly block the thing. That should be quite and event as the shawl is quite enormous :-)

PPS. Once again I remind everyone that I chose to use 3.5mm needles instead of the 3.25mm recommended in the pattern. The size of my yarn was about the same. The end result was that I used 600+ more yards than the pattern calls for and my shawl unblocked already exceeds the final dimensions of the blocked shawl that Miriam knit. I had 2300 yds to work with, so I had the freedom to choose the needle size that yielded a lace fabric that was pleasing to my eye. If you have plenty of yarn and desire a really large shawl, you are welcome to follow my choice. If not, please use the smaller needle. Either way, be prepared for the possibility that you may need more than 1300 yds of laceweight yarn to finish the shawl as written. I can't imaging anything worse than spending this many hours knitting a masterpiece only to run short of yarn on Chart 10. True, some designs can be easily adapted to shorten the length, but I don't see this as one of them. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Good luck!

Done, Sort of...Grrrrr

I'm done knitting the Hidcote Garden Shawl! Well, sort of done. If completing knitting row 21 of chart 10, which is the last row of the shawl, means done then I'm done. But not really. You see I started to cast-off as the pattern directed, after row 21. But, only for a couple of inches--just long enough to see that I was not happy with the finished look. You see the tips of the points are never really closed together if you follow the pattern. They end with adjacent ssk and k2tog stitches, which is not *really* closed and casting-off doesn't bring adequate closure IMHO. So I tinked back, carefully undoing all those cast-off stitches (a huge PITA) and purled one more row making a few tweaks to close the tips and still keep the stitch count pretty much the same.

In a nutshell what I did was p2 tog at every ssk/k2tog located between double YOs, thus closing the tips of the points. I did the usual k1, p1 in the double YOs. I purled across the large stockinette section , inserting a single yo in between the ssk and the k2tog of that area. Or if you were counting it would be : ...(k1, p1) in yo, p7, yo, p7, (k1, p1) in yo, p2tog; repeat. I did not insert a yo where there was a single decrease near the center and the edges. Adding the yo's where I did allowed for ample stretch at the location in the shawl where blocking will place the most tension. This location also maintained balance without detracting from the original design.

So with nice closed points I was really to cast-off for sure right? Not! You see, now I'm on teh right side of the shawl so I need to do things a little differently. I've made 4 attempts thus far and have hated all of them (too loose, too tight, rolls too much to the right side, and just looks funky in a not good way). I've crocheted off purlwise (loose and rolls). I've done a suspended cast-off purlwise with a crochet hook(too loose and funky). I've done a knitting needle knitted cast-off (too tight). And now I'm going to put about 40 sts back otn (I really thought this last one would be it---wrong) and try again. But not until tomorrow. Maybe I'll have better luck next time. Oh, and I didn't even tell you about auditioning beads and crystals for possible inclusion in the aforementioned cast-off fiasco. They were cause for a little more tinking. If I decide I want beads, I'll sew them on later. Grrrrrr

T Minus 3 and Counting down!

That's right, only 3 rows left on Hidcote. Well, technically it's only 2 rows and then cast-off but I figure the cast-off row is nothing more than an extra long, complicated row that still has to be knit. Either way, I'm almost there. I figured I had finished knitting all the difficult stuff and then last night I got to row 11 and a nasty little 4 in a box. What the ****! Knitting 3 sts together is tricky enough, there' no way I was going to succeed knitting 4 together all in one maneuver--esp. at the beginning of a row when all the sts want to go flying off the tip of the Turbos anyway. So I just k3tog and then passed the 4th st over the top afterward and it works just great. Now if only there was a magic pill for dealing with all those double YOs . I am so sick of them! I should be finished casting off tomorrow I think. Then I'll just have to wait until the blocking wires I ordered arrive before I can do the "magic" thing (I think blocking lace is magic).

Once Hidcote is finished, then it's time to move to new and different projects. I still have 2 shawls that need edgings finished. I don't have much left on the Fir Cone Shawl so I think I'll push through and finish it. On the other hand, the Shetland Tea Shawl needs almost all of it's edging--a big job which I will probably procrastinate for awhile longer. I need to finish daddy's socks--a pretty high priority thing but last night I suddenly realized I needed to focus on making a thank you gift for Dr. Thomas. I want to make something personal that will be meaningful for this amazing woman who has been my greatest mentor ever. I can't even begin to list all the things this amazing woman has done to bless my life. I have never experienced such unfailing support from anyone (my parents excluded) in my life. So many others I've encountered in my professional experience have had a flip side that was less than wonderful. At the very least they didn't have my best interests at heart, but Sandra has been nothing but encouraging and positive even when I was extremely ill and at my very lowest point. So I'm exploring my options as I don't have a great deal of time to knit something, but I want to be special. Right now I'm thinking about a little shoulder shawl, possibly Swallowtail, out of either silk or cashmere. Or I have a nice selection of laceweight kid mohair/silk yarns in the stash so I may opt for one of them If I choose a different pattern. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Weary Brain

So what do you do when you've been very good and worked hard all day on *the dissertation* and your brain is weary? The answer is stupid things like surfing your friend's blogs and finding new quizzes to take that are frighteningly spot on about who you are. Like this one for example:

You Belong in Paris

You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris. You're the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.

What European City Do You Belong In?

How did they know that I would adore visiting Paris? Ah, the food, the fashion, the architecture, the art! I could stay in Paris for weeks and just soak it all in. Of course I would need a rich Sugar Daddy to foot the bill and someone knowledgeable and influential to show me the town, but hey, I can always dream can't I?

I'm still knitting away on the Hidcote Garden Shawl.The countdown now stands at 10 rows left to knit. I knit the longest row last night, coming in at a whopping 531 sts, and am now easing my way to the points. The end *is* in sight and the worst of the patterned knitting is over and done with. Only a few more rows of those blasted double YOs, which I don't like knitting becasue you can't just whiz through a row of plain purling after them. No, you have to count and anticipate the big holes so you remember to knit the 1st loop and then go back to purling. Ah the sacrifices one has to make for the love of lace knitting!

I finally broke down last night and ordered a set of blocking wires from KnitPicks so I am prepared for the dastardly deed once Hidcote comes off the needles. The wires I bought at the hardware store locally last Christmas were only 18" long which is way too short for blocking big shawls and I hated working with them as they wree also a big thick and clunky. While KnitPicks didn't offer the best price for a set of blocking wires, I knew I would get free shipping since I was ordering needles too so it proved to be the best option overall. I also bought several sets of circulars and dpns, all in small sizes, after having such a positive experience with my first pair of Options dpns. My budget isn't up to buying the Options set yet, but I mostly needed size 3.0mm and 3.25mm circulars anyway. I just have to pace this stuff, getting more tools every few months as the budget allows, but there was no way I was going to face blocking the big honking Hidcote without proper wires. Nope, not gonna do it any other way.

PS. Here's another one of those quizzes. This one is almost eerie, but then I guess I'm in pretty fine company. Besides, I'm a big fan of Martha Stewart :-)

Your Aura is Green

You're very driven, competitive, and even a bit jealous. However, you seek out balance in your life - and you usually achieve it! The purpose of your life: inspiring others to be better Famous greens include: Tony Robbins, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart Careers for you to try: Guru, CEO, Talk Show Host

What Color Is Your Aura?

Making progress

My woolly friend Ewe-nice graciously agreed to pose for the camera to show off what's been happening on the knitting front lately. After taking yet another sanity break from the Hidcote garden shawl I am at it once again, this time knitting furiously on to the finish line! Since this is the one year anniversary of the Knitting Olympics and the completion of my first lace shawl, a red Kiri, I decided to go for the gold once more and see if I can finish Hidcote before the end of the month. As of this minute I have 15 rows left, very long rows, like more than 500 sts long rows! While I love this shawl and look forward to wearing it proudly, I am sick to death of knitting it! Whew! Confession is good for the soul, isn't it?

OK, so I'm making fine progress on the Hidcote shawl. I'm also making fine progress on my dissertation and graduation plans for May. I presented another one of my interviews in the phenomenology research group at the college yesterday and had a really insightful experience. It really does amaze me how the use of the interpretive group brings out nuances in the text that I didn't notice, even after spending hours reading and transcribing the dialogue myself. Then to top it all off, my major professor, the wonderful Sandra Thomas, handed me a copy of the letter she wrote to the dean of the Graduate School requesting the waivers and extensions I needed to be permitted to graduate without further adieu even though it's taken me many years longer than the rules allow and there were many semesters where the rules dictated I register and pay big bucks but I didn't 'cuz I was too darn sick to do school stuff and too poor to keep paying tuition when I wasn't working on the degree. Yes, it's a miracle I don't have to come up with a several thousand more dollars, just a relatively meager graduation fee. Hallelujah!!! Amen :-)

In light of all the anxieties produced by the aforementioned University stuff, and the fact that it has been blessed cold here the last couple of weeks, I continued to work on refining my fingerless mitts design. They now have a name---Miss Melly---and a story to go with it (it's still a secret but think "Gone With the Wind"), but the pattern is still under written construction. Since I already made the faux pas of publishing a picture of the design online I can't submit the manuscript for consideration to be published (but at least I know the rules now), so I've decided to offer it as a freebie here on the blog when I get it finished. I figure the feedback will also be instructive and a good experience for a budding knitware designer. In the meantime Ewe-nice, whose paws are too small to wear the mitts, decided to humor me by wearing my latest Miss Mellys on her ears. Well ears get cold too you know? The yarn is Plymouth's Baby Alpaca DK, which is wonderfully soft, comes in delightful colors, and is a joy to knit with. Or, and the wearing ain't bad either--esp. when it's late at night and I'm rewriting that dissertation chapter one more time >:^{

Super Sunday

Let's see, it's Sunday night. In Knoxville its *very* cold and dry. In Miami a bunch of people shelled out hundreds of bucks to sit in the pouring rain and watch this thing called the Super Bowl. It's a ball game. A football game. It's supposed to be a really big deal, but I usually don't care about it as pro football isn't my thing. But this year is an exception because there's this guy named Manning, Peyton Manning, who is the quarterback for one of the teams, the Indianapolis Colts. I love Peyton Manning. Why? Well, he was a star football player for my beloved University of Tennessee Volunteers. Even better, he graduated from UT--very important in my book if you are going to be held in high enough esteem for me to consider a person qualified for hero status among kids. Being educated is more important that playing football, no matter how good you are. Then there's this thing about just being a really, really good, honest person who does good things for others. Integrity is such a rare bird in today's world, esp. in athletics. The Manning family (Dad Archie, Mom, and brother Eli included) stand head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to integrity. And if you don't have integrity, you don't have anything really.

So I'm happy about this super thing. And it's half-time and Peyton & the Colts are ahead. And I'm watching the Knitty Gritty marathon on DIY. I'm not watching Prince do the half-time show, that's for sure (don't like his music, and let's not even go into where he stands on things like values and integrity). Host Vickie Howell is blogging live over on the DIY website so I popped over and posted a comment to show my support. It would have been more fun if it would have been a live show, but Vickie is doing a book tour so that wouldn't work this year. But if the blogging goes well, maybe next year.... They're promoting knitting blocks for Warm-Up America during the game. I feel marginally guilty, but I'm not doing one. If I were doing good-deed knitting tonight I'd finish daddy's Christmas socks--but I'm not doing that either.

I've been sicker than all get out this week. It's been a weird kind of sick though, and I have no idea why or what's going on really. But I do know that all the stress I've been feeling from the dissertation is part of the problem and the best answer I had was to cool it for a few days and sleep a lot. And since my brain hasn't been too functional, knitting has been good therapy as well. I'm half-way through chart 9 on the Hidcote shawl and the end is near! I'm at the point where I'm tired of knitting this one and at the same time I'm really anxious to finish. It's a huge shawl to begin with and I think mine may block out to be even larger since I opted to go up one needle size from what the pattern called for.But since my cashmere is going to bloom once I wash and block it, I felt I needed the bigger needle size to achieve the look I wanted.

Since it's been so cold lately I've been wishing I had a pair of fingerless mitts to wear at night while working at the 'puter or knitting. I don't really have any pretty aran wt. yarn to knit Fetching with, but I have some dk cashmerino and some fluffy fingering wt. alpaca. I opted to use the cashmerino and design my own pattern but I knew I needed to wash this ColourMart yarn first in order to feel confident with my stitch counts and needle size. So that meant unwinding the yarn off the cone and into big hanks--no small feat since I don't have a swift or a niddy noddy--and then washing the yarn and dry it--partially air dry plus a short fluff in the dryer. I ended up using one of those lattice looking cup holder thingies you hang on the wall to serve as my swift and I carefully wrapped the yarn around the outer knobs (42" circumference). I placed cotton thread ties around the yarn in four places after every 25 wraps to prevent tangling and ultimately turned the 150g cone into 3 balls. Thank goodness I have a ball winder! The yarn fluffed up nicely and I'm playing with a simple ribbed lace pattern. I started out with size 5 dpns, but they were too big and I had too many stitches. This go around I'm using size 3 dpns and 54 stitches (the pattern is a 9 st repeat). I've knit about an inch thus far so I'll keep you posted.

Delirious

It's late Tuesday night after a couple of intense days working away on the dissertation. At times I'm so tired I'm delirious. That's a problem when I decided I need a break from it all so I pick up my knitting! If I work with any speed I make mistakes and end up tinking, so mostly I just knit slowly. And I look at the charts more often than usual. Not often enough mind you as I just finished knitting a few repeats on Hidcote where I reversed my k2tog & ssk sts. Fortunately it was in a place where the change really didn't adversely affect the lace so I didn't tink. I dislike tinking ssk sts, but I *despise* tinking sssk with a fervent hatred reserved only for the vilest of things. Yup, it's that awful. The good news is I'm on the last row of Chart 8. Only 2 more charts left to go and this cow has the barn in sight--both for the shawl and for the dissertation. YeeHaw!

The Long and Short of Things

My time to knit has been quite short this week as I have been submerged in the research for my dissertation. But as I mentioned in yesterday's post knitting on the Hidcote Garden Shawl has been a bit frustrating because the stitches are so crowded on the needles. I despise knitting in a crowd! LOL So after working on my research into the wee hours of the morning last night, I was a bit brain-dead when I woke up this morning (it *was* still morning, but not by much). I grabbed my Diet Coke and the shawl and resumed knitting where I left off last night on row 5 of Chart 8. After 3 or 4 repeats I realized I was adding double yos in between the ssk and k2tog sts. where, of course, they didn't belong. Shame on me for not looking at the chart to verify the pattern before starting to knit! I decided double yos were a lot of extra yarn, so I grabbed a 16" circular and slipped my way back to where I started and proceeding to drop the yos and pull up the slack. I knit a couple more repeats when I realized I was decreasing a lot and not adding enough sts to compensate. Yes, only then did I *look* at the chart and realize that I was omitting the 2 single yos in each repeat. Can you say wake up!!! So I frog back a second time (no easy task in the crowd) and fix the mistakes.

Once the evil row 5 is finished, correctly, I start the hunt to find my 24" Addis. I can't find them, but I did find my 32" 4s in the Shetland Tea Shawl which has been languishing in a basket while I knit Hidcote. Oh duh! No wonder my stitches are so crowded--I'm using a 24" needle! Talk about senselessly clueless, I had no idea I was working with a short needle. So the STS got put on a big long lifeline until I can go back and finish the edging and Hidcote got a chance to stretch out a show off for the camera as I transitioned between the 2 Addis. Talk about feeling stupid!

The Sabbath is a Day of Rest

Today is Sunday. And being the very faithful Latter-Day Saint that I am I took advantage of the Sabbath Day as a Day of Rest. I slept late, I took a long nap after Church, and I rested from my labors on the Gansey Pillow. It was miserably cold and rainy today and my body hurt like holy toledo! My neck was especially unhappy, making it difficult for me to concentrate on the talks in church (one of which was a very nice discourse on keeping the Sabbath Day holy). I didn't stay for Sunday School as I was in far too much pain.

After dinner I picked up my knitting and starting working on the Hidcote Garden Shawl again. I had let it languish a bit while enjoying my gansey adventure, but decided to pick it up again after noticing that my forearms were hurting more than usual after a gansey knitting session. Perhaps the tighter knitting required for ganseys is more demanding physically than the looser knitting lace prefers? Whatever the reason, it was a good choice to switch. I've finished 6 of the 10 charts in Hidcote and I'm already several rows into chart 7. Even though the rows are quite long (300+ st) the diamond motif in this center section is pretty fast knitting as lace goes. I just need to finish this chart and I'll be ready to move on to the final lace pattern which resembles stems of lavender in bloom. A couple of my Hidcote garden KAL partners finished their shawls this weekend and they started in January! Wow that's fast, focused knitting. Hidcote is a huge shawl so knitting it in 19 or 20 days is seriously impressive.