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!!!

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!!!

Fat Yarn, Fat Needles

Since the day I finished my first lace knit scarf about four and a half years ago I have been in love with skinny yarns and tiny needles. That scarf, an "Old Shale" lace knit in a white mohair/silk blend yarn on US size 6/4.0mm needles sent me on a path where my knitting had never gone before. It's been exceedingly difficult to persuade myself to return to fat yarn and fat needles and to try knitting sweaters again. Let me define "fat" for you. By fat yarn I mean anything worsted wt or heavier and fat needles are anything bigger than a US 7/4.5mm. Such yarn feels more like rope in my hands, the fat needles more like broomsticks.

Returning to the "fat" way of knitting has been a real challenge, but I was determined to give it a go. Besides the added bulk of everything was my fear of knitting sweaters. Me? Afraid? YES!!! Why? Because I have yet to ever knit a sweater than fit well and flattered my curvy self. I've done big-enough-for-two-to-wear-at-the-same-time sweaters, I've done boxy, oversized, drop-shoulder, you-just-gained-20-pounds-by-putting-this-on sweaters. I've done multi-stranded, super chunky, cropped OhMyGosh! sweaters and no-pattern-innovate-falls-off-the-shoulders sweaters. And (oh yeah!) the one it's-kinda-snug sweater (you mean dk wt is different from worsted wt????) that I did wear even though it left marks on my arms where the sleeves were binding (so much for puffed sleeves of the 80's). I have learned that accurate gauge swatches are not only important, they are essential to good sweater knitting. Sigh.....

When the new Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting showed up at my LYS I picked it up and started to thumb through the pages with my usual skepticism for VK. But wait! This time VK came through with lots of lace and plus-sized sweaters that even I wanted to knit. SHOCK!!! When I came across the lace tunic designed by Project Runway contestant Gordana Gehlhausen I knew I had to knit one for myself. I bought some lovely lavender cotton blend yarn (dk wt. :-) and started in. My gauge was perfect using a size smaller than the pattern calls for needles (sz 8). I couldn't stand the thought of having to heft around sz 9s!

Knitting WW cotton yarn sweaters is physically more taxing than lace shawls, so I have had to pace myself. I found that I can do it in the morning, but not at night. Even still, I am only a few short rows from being finished only a month after starting. This is very good. Once I am done there will be photos to share, so keep tuned. In the meantime I chose another summer cardigan/top from a back issue of VK for my next sweater project. Sweaters are great for my wardrobe. I think I'll try and knit some more :-) Shocking, I know :-)

Rant : TNNA

This evening I received an email asking me to complete an online survey for TNNA, the National Needlearts Association,the professional trade association for "hand needlearts" in the USA. I followed the link and filled out the survey. I willingly indicated the needlearts I practice and how competent I am in each discipline. I counted up and categorized every project I completed last year and summarized my spending for materials and related supplies as queried by the survey. I filled in all the blanks. Fine. Then why the rant? Why am I so irritated???? Because of the narrow vision of TNNA.

The only needlearts TNNA wanted to know if I was either skilled at or practiced last year were: knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, cross-stitch, or hand embroidery. PERIOD!!! What?????? Not once in any of the survey, even when they were asking about "other" things like sewing, quilting, scrapbooking, or beading did they even think to mention a single form of lace making. No tatting. No bobbin lace, no needle lace, NOTHING!!! It's no wonder that only one published needlearts magazine in the USA ever has anything about tatting (Interweave Piecework) and the only company that publishes tatting patterns (Handy Hands excepted) is Annie's Attic...and that ain't much to speak about. If it weren't for Lacis and a very small handful of other retailers (Nordic Needle, etc.) the lacemakers in this country would have practically no industry acknowledgment or support at all! That's pretty shameful considering the last time I checked folks used needles and related hand implements to make lace in its various forms.

I know, I know! I shouldn't be surprised by all this...and I'm not really. Nevertheless, I'm still angry at the narrowness of TNNAs vision in light of how much tatting and lacemaking has grown over the past decade. At the end of the survey was a place for comments. I wasted no time in chastising TNNA for ignoring tatting and lacemaking, both in their survey and in their acknowledgment of what constitutes needlearts in the USA. Shame on them!!!

Review: Vogue Knitting Holiday 2009 Issue

I thumbed through the Vogue Knitting Holiday 2009 issue yesterday at my LYS. It had just arrived. I look forward to this particular issue every year as I always find pretty things I want to make in it...esp the lace shawls. There have been lovely shawls by Karen Joan Raz the past several years as well as great sweaters and other holiday things. I was excited to see what treasure I would find this time. Sadly there were no treasures, nothing worthy of the purchase price. To say I am extremely disappointed with the content of this years Holiday issue is an understatement.

There were three items that appealed to me: lace socks, a beret, and one lace V-neck sweater. I liked the lace socks best--they were really pretty and would be a fun knit. BUT I have oodles of amazing sock patterns so I can't justify buying the magazine just for one sock pattern. There was a beret that was super cute and would also be a great knit for myself or as a gift. BUT I bought the Fall issue that has oodles of cute berets so no need to buy for that either. The V-neck sweater was designed with an all-over horseshoe lace pattern--one of my favorites. I would have seriously considered buying the magazine for this sweater but one look at the sizing stopped me dead in my tracks. The sizes ranged from an XS/SM (29" bust) to XL (40" bust). I hope the size 0-2 ladies out there enjoy this one cuz the majority of the knitters out there won't fit in the available size range. Maybe I can find another pattern that is similar one of these days...that has my size accounted for too. Typical Vogue!

I just don't get VK's obsession with super chunky yarns and super chunky sweaters, especially this Twinkle stuff that has been in every issue for at least 2 yrs. now. UGH!!! Who wears this stuff? (no one I know) Who does it flatter? (can't think of a soul) I know I certainly don't need the added bulk of super chunky yarns knit into oversized, mostly shapeless garments on my frame. Most slender or small framed women I know prefer to show off their pretty shape, not drown it in acres of fat yarn. Leave the tents to the Army or Boy Scouts and spare the sheep and fields of cotton of such insult. Beautiful fiber deserves better use.

The issue is good if you are into cowls/gaiters/wimples/neck choking stuff. There are pages and pages of patterns for these...many again knit out of super chunky yarns. I felt the need to gasp for air just looking at photos! I guess I don't get this trend either. Scarves and shawls are so much more versatile, can be as snug of as loose as you wish, and you can put them on or take them off quickly without creating a bad hair disaster. I laughed at the models' "perfect" hair flowing over these cowls knowing full well that your hair gets totally messed up every time you tug one on or off. Hey...it's a new style! You've heard of hat hair? Let me , um, let VK introduce you to cowl hair! Don't leave home without your combs, brushes, and misc. hair products or you'll be sorry...or at least very scary looking. EEEEK! I just don't get it.

The bottom line? I give this issue a big two thumbs down. Save your money and the recycle bin and just say no to VK Holiday

Gotthold Doily

Gotthold
Originally uploaded by beadntat

I'm finally getting around to posting photos of my recently completed Niebling Doilies. This is Gotthold, from the folio Kunststricken: Grosse un kleine Decken that was reprinted by Verlag fur die Frau in Germany and made available in the US at Lacis. It is so nice to finally be able to access legal copies of vintage Niebling designs at an affordable price. Before then avid lace knitters either had to pay a King's ransom to buy the patterns on Ebay or they downloaded illegal copies from the internet. I refused to do either so I was out of luck. No more! Lacis says they will have another collection ready for purchase soon...and this time it will be translated into English and the patterns will all have been proofed and test-knit so they will be error-free. WooHoo! I can't wait :-)

Christel Doily

Christel
Originally uploaded by beadntat

There were many long evenings of squinting and finger stretches, but at last little Christel is off the needles. I say little not because the doily is small, at 18 inches blocked it is anything but small, but the DMC tatting thread and the US000/1.5mm needles I used to knit Christel are most definitely small. Very small. Crazy small. Forget bifocals and ditch the glasses small. That's SMALL!!! But I really love this little doily. She is so delicate when compared Gotthold knit with sz 40 cordonnet and US 0/2.0mm needles. Yes, Gotthold looks huge!!!

Gotthold was my third Niebling Doily (Starry Night/Valentine's Day was my first, Mallins 44 the second) and Christel my fourth. I am most definitely hooked on knitting these vintage German designs. So much so that I dropped a small chunk of change on ebay last night for an old magazine filled with patterns by another designer, Erich Engeln. In German Engeln means tulip so it only makes sense that his lace designs frequently featured tulips. There are several doilies plus a large tablecloth with the most amazing tulip motifs that I can't wait to knit. I'm sure Mom will be thrilled since tulips are her most favorite of all flowers. She loves many types of flowers, as do I, but she loves tulips the most. Now all I have to do is contemplate thread choices and wait on the DM (Deutsch Mail, known to be notoriously slow at times) to send my little treasure on its way to me. I can't wait!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

It's February, it's still winter (ugh!), and I, the Queen of Old Maids, have survived yet another Valentine's Day. Unlike times past I have now arrived at the age of wisdom where I know it is perfectly fine to be single and even better to celebrate the day in my own way. I did very good this year. Very good!


I started things out by doing what I love, knitting. I knit a wonderful doily known as Starry Night, but really it is the Valentine's Day doily because the center is a ring of hearts. I knit mine using red Cebelia 20 and 2.5mm needles. Sweet! I can now knit such lovely little masterpieces with reckless abandon because I am the chuffed owner of a proper blocking board. A what you ask? Yes, a board that is padded and covered with a iron-proof cloth that is imprinted with a precisely measured grid, both square and circular, which allows me to pin out soggy little starch-laden cotton strings into glorious lace. oh joy!!!


After purchasing said board at my local JoAnn's (using a 50% off coupon, of course) I went on a spree and blocked every new doily I knit last year. As if that were not enough, I then proceeded to test my eyesight and teensy tiny knitting skills by knitting more doilies...with skinnier thread...and teensier little needles...and more complex stitches. Call it the lace knitter's endorphin rush. It's been a blast!


I did have balance to my Valentine's celebrating. I do more than just knit after all. I went shopping. Mom (love ya!) took me shopping for some new jeans, and pants, and a lacy tank, and a super pink shirt. Yummy, yummy. I wore said jeans and tank with a proper orange and white sweater and hand-knit socks (my Vols Victory Lace socks, of course) to the Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee men's basketball game at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tyler Smith had a super game. Bruce Pearl's guys played better than they did the previous week and won big over arch rival Vandy. I, having degrees from both universites, could not lose as a fan...but make no mistake, I am a Vols fan all the way. GO BIG ORANGE!!!

The Best Laid Plans

It was bound to happen. After all the careful contemplation of patterns, extensive swatching, a fair amount of math, and a sleeve aka lace pattern swatch I felt confident that I had done everything in my power to assure that this time the sweater I am knitting would fit. This one was not going to be wide enough for two persons like my previous attempts, after all, I am a much more experienced knitter now. O know what to do and I did it (that "S" thing).

I cast-on the stated 259 sts and started knitting this all-in-one-without-side-seams cardigan with great confidence. I knew the reverse stockinette stitch edging was supposed to undulate so it would take at least one repeat of the lace pattern before I could pass judgment on size. I chose to use a 60" Addi-Turbo needle so I could do a test "try-on" as I knit. Let's just say it didn't take a full repeat for me to know that once again, this cardigan was way too wide. It should be my motto...Way Too Wide. It was at least 4 inches too wide...possibly more. It was late at night (my best knitting time). I groaned and pitched the thing into a basket and called it a night.

The next morning I re-evaluated the situation. I did a bit more math, then I frogged the whole things and started over knitting one size smaller. The test-sleeve will have to be frogged too since the rate of increases is quite different in the smaller size. SIGH! This will be a beautiful sweater that fits...if it kills me!!!


In a fever of Startitis a couple of weeks ago I also cast-on a triangle shawl that I saw on Ravelry. It was a new pattern by an indie designer, Rebecca Hatcher of Archiknist, called Ariel. It was a simple top-down triangle shawl with one lace motif comprising the body of the shawl -- a style similar to that of my favorite designer Evelyn Clark. In a impulsive moment I purchased and downloaded the shawl. Then I dug out a cone of ColourMart merino laceweight yarn in a delicious pinky-raspberry shade and went to work. First I triple stranded the yarn to create a fingering weight (My ball winder and right shoulder have yet to forgive me for this), then I grabbed a big size 6 needle and cast-on. What a wonderful pattern! What a delicious yarn!! What a yummy shawl this is becoming!!! As of this morning I have ten repeats of Chart B (main chart) completed. I have lots of yarn so I'll knit until the shawl is big enough or until I'm sick of knitting on it. Either way it will be fabulous :-)


I didn't need to cast-on for the Ariel Lace Shawl because I have a backlog of KAL shawl projects that need my attention. But who's looking at the practical facts here? Not me. I also cast-on a brand new Stole from Birgit Freyer's Yahoo Group Knitting-Delight. I really love Birgit's design esthetic. Perhaps it is the German blood in me that bonds us, but she has more great designs that I would love to knit that I can ever imagine having the time for. The awful exchange rate makes it expensive for me to buy many of my favorites, but I do collect her free KAL patterns. When the 1st clue of her new Way of Life Stole was posted, I cast-on the same day using some Knit Picks Gloss Lace Yarn from my stash. This shawl is knit sideways having over 300 cast-on stitches. The pattern has been a geometric lace pattern that is repeated 17 times for the length of the stole. Not very complex really, but amazingly attractive and interesting. I have the 1st 4 clues completed and am anxiously awaiting the release of the 5th clue on Thursday.

All this spontaneity means I haven't finished several WIPS, nor have I written the sock patterns I have promised to do. I feel only slightly guilty. I will try to do better by at least getting the patterns done as folks are waiting on them. The WIPS are only about me, so they don't matter nearly as much. In the meantime, I'm trying to do as much knitting as I can given that my fibromyalgia is in a rage and my right arm fells like someone is trying to yank it out of it's socket. Yeeeouch! (that's a huge understatement). I rested it some on Sunday and Monday by taking time off to read Debbie Macomber's wonderful knitty novel The Shop on Blossom Street. The book was completely delightful and I've started reading the sequel A Good Yarn. If my shoulder won't let me knit then I guess I'll have to settle for reading about knitters. Such is life :-)

What does 08.08.08 mean???

It's supposedly a very lucky number in China. How convenient that it happened to fall on a Friday this year...perfect timing for the Opening Ceremonies of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, China. I love watching the Olympics - everything from the Opening Ceremonies to most of the competitive events (nix wrestling, boxing, and a couple of others) to the Closing Ceremonies - it's all fascinating to me. Some sports I follow all the time - gymnastics, swimming, cycling are among my favorites. Some sports are novel to me. This year I've learned a little about the team sport handball. And to think I thought handball was a game played by 2 people in a racquetball court!


A more recent "sporting event" added to my "Olympic experience" has been knitting. It all started 2 years ago when Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot got the wild idea to have an international knitting event of challenge and goodwill in association with the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy in 2006. And thus the Official Knitting Olympics was born. The KO is be held every 4 years in true Olympic tradition associated with the winter games. But the idea caught on in an enormous sort of way, so with the Beijing summer games looming on the horizon a comparable, but distinctly different Olympic event for fiber fanatics seemed inevitable. And what is the biggest thing to come along since The Yarn Harlot and Torino? Why Ravelry, of course! I love Ravelry, or at least most of the time I do, so it was the logical venue for hosting an Olympic-sized event. And so the Ravelympics were born. The knitters and crocheters, representing their unique teams, cast-on for their respective events during the Opening Ceremonies and work feverishly to complete their projects before the Olympic Flame is turned off in Beijing.


I was a beginning lace knitter 2 years ago during the Knitting Olympics. My chosen project was very ambitious - my 1st lace shawl. I knit Kiri in a heavy laceweight/light fingering weight red cashmerino. I finished in time, basked in the glory of my triumph, and forever sealed my addiction to lace knitting. Now, 2 years and many shawls later, I'm still knitting lace and loving it. This time the choice of what to knit was difficult as there were so many awesome patterns to choose from. I signed up for Team G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Raised In The South, one of the Ravelry groups I participate in) and entered the Shawl Relay, Laceweight Long Jump, and Balance Beads. That was the easy part. The rest was hard. I needed to use yarn from The Yarn Haven, my favorite LYS as I am also participating the int shop's Olympic event. That limited my pattern options some. The rest of the decision should have been easy--choose something you like that you know you can do. But could I do that??? No way! No, I desperately wanted to knit Mystic Meadows, an ambitious cables and lace stole that would be hard to complete in the 17 days of the Olympics. I quietly entered 3 shawl projects into the Ravelympics, knowing I would knit only one. Every good gymnast has an alternate plan for each routine, right? Right!


OK, so that's the scoop. Now to the event. I cast-on during the Opening Ceremonies. I started my ambitious project - the Mystic Meadows shawl. I calculated in advance that I needed to knit between 25-30 rows per day in order to finish the "race". It was ambitious, but doable, I thought. But 3 1/2 hours and 13 rows later, with a fair amount of tinking to correct mistakes, I knew I was in over my head. Could I knit this shawl in 17 days? Absolutely. Could I knit the shawl AND watch the Olympics? Nope. No way. Mystic Meadows demands too much concentration. Too much counting. And so I set it aside and cast-on the Angel Lace Shawl, my alternate plan.

The Angel Lace Shawl is another wonderful pattern by one of my favorite designers, Evelyn Clark. Like many of Evelyn's shawl, Angel Lace is a top-down triangle shawl which starts with a few stitches at the neck and increases as the shawl progresses. I'm using a favorite yarn, Misti Alpaca Lace in a pretty pastel lavender, and adding ivory ceylon 8-0 seed beads to the "face" of each angel and along the bottom edge. I started on August 9th knitting the 1st chart and 4 repeats of the 2nd chart. I added 1-2 repeats each day until I completed 16 repeats last night and declared the shawl big enough. Today, the 10th day of Olympic competition, I started knitting the edging so I should be ready cast-on Tuesday or Wedsnesday. The Shawl relay referee decided that blocking was required for the "race" to be complete, so I will be doing that as soon as I finish casting off. I will triumph once again! And best of all...I will have another wonderful shawl to wear with pride and joy! Yea team!

Ketchup??? Fessin' Up!

Now if that title didn't grab your attention, I don't know what would :-) But the time has come for me to ketchup on my blogging and fess up as to what I've been doing for the last few weeks. My last few blog posts were filled with images of my spring garden. I love sharing my garden with ya'll, but the truth is I was working on a Top Secret knitting project so I couldn't blog about it. Why? Because the intended target always reads my blog, of course! Now the the mission was accomplished, I can tell all :-)


Several months ago I sent my dear friend Diana some yarn to finish a shawl she was knitting as a gift. She had that dreaded I'm almost done and the yarn is gone! experience. Fortunately I happened to have the very same yarn from the same dyelot even. Cool! So Ms. Di sent me her snail mail addy and I discovered that she lived in a really neat historic town in West Virginia--just the kind of place I love to visit. I dropped an atom bomb sized hint that I would love to come for a visit and see the territory. Diana figured it out and invited me to come. Oh joy!!!


Now my Mother raised me to be a proper lady and I know how to be a good houseguest (thanks Mom!). I started to think about what I could bring as a hostess gift. The first thing that came to mind was something knitted, of course. I was inspired by some Malabrigo lace yarn at my LYS in Diana's favorite color - purple. I bought 2 skeins and headed home to figure out what to make with it. Then I learned that Diana's beloved Father-in-law Bill was ill and she was very concerned. That's when I knew I had to knit a lace shawl. I scoured my files and the 'net for the right pattern, found one I liked, and cast-on. About 25 rows in to the bottom-up triangle shawl I realized the pattern wasn't right for the task at hand, I frogged the whole thing and started my search all over again. I had 1 month left to knit the shawl.


I learned that Bill's health was deteriorating about the same time that I ran across Myrna Stahman's pattern, Alix's Prayer Shawl, in my files. At last, the perfect pattern! I knew I had the right yarn and the right pattern, but the combo of the two demanded that I add beads as well, and so I did.

Cast-on: May 8th
Knit, knit, knit. Bead, bead, bead.
Cast-off: June 8th
Whew, just in the nick of time!

The scoop:
Pattern: Alix's Prayer Shawl
Designer: Myrna Stahman
Source: DebbieMacomber.com
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace, 2 skeins (100g) color-Jacinto (~80g used)
Needles: Addi-Lace US 5 (3.75mm)
Beads: Matsuno 8-0 clear silverlined, ~25g (513 beads used)
Knit Main Chart (a-d) + 8 reps of section d = 11 reps + 1rep modified edging.
Final stitch count (before last row and cast-off): 441 sts
Blocked Dimensions: 76" x 38"


I gift-wrapped the shawl along with a lavender "bottle" made with fresh lavender from my garden, packed my car and headed to West Virginia on June 11th. After an 8-hour drive up I-81 and a little jaunt through the country side I arrived at the humble home of Diana and Tony. Eager to see her reaction, I offered up my gift of love that night. The look on Diana's face was priceless. She was almost speechless...almost ;-) I think she liked it... a lot. I was *very* happy.

To be continued...

The Trouble with KALs...

...is there are so many of them! I've joined most of the lace/shawl KALS, esp. the "mystery" ones. I knit the MS 3/Swan Lake last summer, which was "the" mystery KAL that really put the concept "on the map" so to speak. By fall there were 3 lace KALS: Chrysopolis, SOTS, and Mystic Waters. I could only cast-on for one and I chose Mystic Waters because the start was different and looked interesting to me. I didn't start the SOTS because the start was a bit too different and I was skeptical. In the end, my 1st impressions of those KALS held true to the end. I wish that I had been able to knit Chrysopolis as it turned out to be an exceptional design. Someday I will knit it :-)


I'm now at row 260 on Mystic Waters and I have to decide whether to go short or long. So, I knit the shawl onto a 47" lace needle which allowed me to stretch her out a get a good look at the shawl. With only a mild stretch she measured ~55" across the top and 35" from top to tip--a nice size but not big enough for my kind of shawl. So this means I'll be knitting another 100 very long rows to finish MW.


With MW still OTN with at least 3 weeks of knitting left to go, what am I to do about the new KALs? The 1st clues for Spring Shawl Surprice are out and they look awesome. SSS is a big project with 12 clues and it's calls for skinny lace yarn. My cone of pale yellow cashcotton from ColourMart arrived in the mail yesterday and would be perfect for SSS. Then there's the VLT KAL which I need to do because I still haven't knit a project from that luscious book. I guess I won't any time in the next few weeks either. And last, but not least is SOTSii which starts next week. I have a gut feeling this design will be more to my liking, so my wanna knit list is getting longer. Thankfully Moni and her German-based KALS Fischer and Bad Nauheim won't get going until later this spring, with Fischer starting in Feb. Thank you Moni! What's a lace knitter to do with so many choices???


And I think I'd finish off today's ramblings with a picture of the finished ends of my Angel Pearls Scarf. Sivia suggested applying beaded tassels to the points at each end of the scarf. Now I can't stand yarn tassels or fringe as they look ratty after a few wearings and horrible if washed. Yuck! However, the idea of a beaded tassel intrigued me and I do think pointy ends deserve embellishment. So I grabbed a spool of gold C-Lon and some Thread Heaven from my beading stash and came up with my variation on Sivia's beaded tassel. I had to modify the design just a bit because I didn't have enough beads to do the slightly bigger and longer tassel. Nevertheless, the tassels seem to add a bit of panache without being too heavy or too garish so I'm pleased. While staring at the finished, tasseled ends I was horrified to find yet another dropped yo in a place where there are decreases on both sides of the knitting--the true lace areas. Man oh man have I learned how tricky this stuff can be! Of course i fixed it just as I did the previous spot, and no one will ever find it---even though you know the repair was made 'cuz I told you so. Maybe I should shut up and not confess these things, but I believe it good for others to know that we all make boo-boos, novice and experts alike :-) My tongue-in-cheek motto: If I were perfect I wouldn't be here! (Just think about that for a second...)

Knitting on!

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 :-)

New Year's Eve

It's just another New Year's Eve, just another Auld Lang Syne -- sounds like a familiar Barry Manilow song, doesn't it? ;-) I'm another year older, maybe I'm a little bit wiser or at least I finally have the PhD to prove it, and life goes on. It's been a very good year on the whole, and my knitting has progressed significantly. It's hard to believe that it's only been 2 years since I knit my 1st lace scarf, now I'm addicted to lace knitting. My latest project, the Angel Pearls Beaded Lace Scarf has reached the half-way point and it's really quite lovely. Or at least that's what I thought until this afternoon when I spread it out to shoot a couple of photos. There it was!!!
Here's a closer view...can you see it? A HOLE. A big ugly hole!!! I was aghast. It's about 1.5 repeats from the top, or the equivalent of what I knit late last night before falling asleep. I'm not exactly sure what happened, if I dropped a stitch or simply missed gathering one up in a cluster, or if it's simply a tension disaster. It could be any or all of the above. The alpaca is very slippery and it's not the easiest thing to knit with 3 strands I'm trying not to separate. So it's been hanging out for the evening while I decide whether to frog back (PitA) or forge ahead and do a sneaky repair later. My go ahead side is reminding me that it's at the back of the neck place in the scarf--the place where no-one will ever see it. Of course the perfectionist me wants to frog/tink it, but I know that the risk of losing even more stitches is super high with this yarn. Perhaps my 1st New Years Resolution needs to be getting over my need to have everything done to perfection. Honestly, this gap in the lace really isn't a big deal, isn't it????
I kind of want to finish the Angel scarf before I cast-on and resume working on Thistle's Epistle. It's a great stole, but I know finishing it will test my tenacity to the max cuz it's reached the sigh, ho hum, BORING! point where I want to do something else. Another resolution: finish the UFOs. I did really well this fall finishing stuff, so my WIP/hibernating list is fairly short, but I still have serious get-it-done work ahead of me.

Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve with Ryan Secrest is on, it's 11:00PM here and I'm signing off to go and knit in the New Year. I'll let you know what happens to the BIG HOLE on the flip side. Until then, I wish you PEACE, HOPE, and JOY! Happy New Year :-)

Whoa!!!!

I'm pulling on the reins, but it's not because I'm Santa telling Rudolph and the reindeer to take off with the Sleigh full of gifts. Not hardly, rather it's me yelling whoa! Time is going by too fast, faster than my fingers can finish knitting the stole I'm concocting for Mother's present. I have accepted the reality that I cannot complete socks for my sister, nor any other major knitted gifts for other family members. This is not so terrible as I wasn't certain my sister would wear the socks, and everyone else wouldn't really appreciate how much work such things take. Simplify, simplify, simplify, quoting Ann Morrow Lindberg, has become my motto.

I thought I'd share the last photo I took of the Mystic Waters Shawl (MWS). I haven't knit any more rows in about 1.5 weeks, but I think I'll go back to it so I can switch between Mom's shawl and the MWS. Working on 2 shawls really helps with the tedious aspect of repetition. The last clue of MWS was posted last week and Anna posted a picture of her finished shawl on her blog just the other day. She used a finer yarn than I am using, and her finished wingspan was over 90" with a depth of 50+". I suddenly realized that if I knit the whole thing, my shawl would be 100+ inches by 60+ inches-- way, way too big. I'm afraid I'll have no other choice but to knit the "small" version and hope that it isn't too small. My guts tell me I really wanted a finished size somewhere between the two but I don't want an afghan. Stay tuned to see what happens!

I had a difficult time deciding what pattern to use for mother stole. Finding a balance between easy-to-knit and interesting-to-knit with the limit of no knit-on edgings made the pickings a bit slim. But I was delighted to discover that Sandy at The Yarn Haven is carrying patterns from HeartStrings FiberArts, including the hot pattern of the summer, the Scotch Thistle Lace Stole. Problem solved! Well, sort of. The pattern calls for fingering wt. yarn and I planned on using a cone of laceweight cashmere (thanks ColourMart!). OK, so I doubled the yarn and kept the recommended needle size. I read through the pattern after I brought it home, but when I cast-on I just started knitting from the chart. It looks nice, but it doesn't look like the one in the picture. Why? In the written directions you are instructed to repeat specific rows multiple times before proceeding to the next part of the chart. Whoops! I briefly considered frogging back, but decided to go on, unventing the pattern as I went. The unventing is a bit interesting but it has called for a few tinking sessions when I hated the choice I made. You didn't think I was wise enough to throw in a lifeline before forging on did you??? Ha! not a chance (OK, I regretted not having a lifeline last night after tinking about 5 rows, ugh!)

I'm taking notes to share when I'm done with my version of the stole (with apologies to Jackie E_S). I'll post pictures next time. Until then, HO HO HO!!!

What a good girl am I !

I've been so good and for 2 days in a row! On Tuesday I stopped in at Loopville to retrieve a ball of Kid Silk Haze (KSH) that she was holding for me. I've been wanting a rich, winey red shawl for this fall/winter and I had picked up what I thought was 3 balls of KSH in the perfect color Liqueur. So when Romi's design Muir was published in the fall issue of Knitty AND she set up KAL groups on Yahoo and Ravelry, well it was just meant to be. Almost, that is, because I really need 4 balls of KSH to knit Muir. I called Jinka on Saturday and sure enough, she had one more ball in the same lot so I was in luck.

The good part comes in with everything else I didn't buy that I saw at Loopville, like several amazing colors of Colinette's new sock yarn Jitterbug. Oh, it was supremely hard to leave that one behind--it required repetitive chanting, "I have enough teal sock yarn, I have enough sock yarn!" As if that wasn't bad enough, then there was the new arrival of Misti Alpaca Laceweight. Hmmm, nice yarn, I think I will like it very much thank you, but not this go 'round. I really didn't feel inspired by any of the colors Jinka chose (black, dark green, gray, chambray blue), they were all rather dark and boring looking. Of course this was enhanced by the fact that I want to knit something in a rich, vibrant, winey red. You know, a ruby red--something that will look smashing against my favorite gray wool skirt. So I was saved again by the fact that my taste in colors is very different from Jinka's. But at least I got to see and feel the yarn so I know what size it really is--very important when evaluating patterns :-)

So I was good at Loopville yesterday, today it was the Yarn Haven. The one thing left between me and casting-on Muir is a needle. The one size 6 Addi-lace needle I own (32") is in use on the Old Shale Scarf, which I am sporadically knitting on. I don't need a 32" needle for the scarf, but I will want it for Muir, so today's task was to buy a 24" Lace needle. What's new at Yarn Haven is Madil Kid Seta in very bright, happy shades of blue, hot pink, purple, and ?(I don't remember, maybe turquoise?), plus some cool rayon variegated carry along thread to go with the MKS. But I was good. I looked, I lusted, I did not buy. I chanted to myself, "I have enough mohair lace yarn, I have lots of mohair lace yarn!" I did show Sandy my Old Shale Scarf and offered suggestions on how to promote/best use the MKS to her customers. Heck, I even did what i've never done before and offered to knit a shop sample for her--if she was interested that is. She seemed surprised by my offer but I affirmed that I was serious--she provides the yarn and we negotiate what I would knit. I left leaving the offer open. I don't think she'll take me up on it, but it could be kinda fun, or at least different.

So I have everything to cast-on Muir and I head over to sign up for the Yahoo group. There folks are discussing a formal Nov 15 start date for a KAL, which sounds fine as I could finish some other things up. Or, I could just jump in and start on my own. I hit the stash trunk to find the other balls of KSH. I had already pulled the one ball I knew was in a basket on the bookshelf. Way on the bottom (of course) I find the zip-lock bag with the KSH in it and oh surprise--there were 3 balls in the bag. That means I already had 4, and now I have 5 which is way more than what I need for Muir and enough for one of the big shawls in Victorian Lace Today! I think I'll be looking for something else for Muir now as KSH is too expensive to have left overs. Maybe it's a good thing the KAL is starting on Nov 15th as I'll have enough time to find another yarn for the project.

Decisions. It's never easy, is it?

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 :-)