I Love Evelyn Clark

This year I decided to do something I don't normally do...knit Christmas presents for several people who have been especially thoughtful and caring towards me this year. No, I really can't knit something for everyone who has been meaningful to me lately (though I wish I could), but at least a few sweet souls will know that I love them very much. Some folks make most of their gifts, thus something of this nature would not be extraordinary. I am different. Having felt the sting of laboring over a handmade gift only to see it underappreciated on multiple occasions taught me to be excessively selective about such things. As such, I gave only little handmade things or purchased gifts to most folks on my list.

Deciding to be different this year set my mind in a whirl. What to knit that is beautiful, functional, relatively fast, and still expresses my feelings well. That's where Evelyn Clark comes in. I love Evelyn's approach to designing lace shawls. Knitting one of her shawls is a pleasure! So I did some stash diving to find the perfect lace yarns in my stash and patterns to match. I had my first project, the Sand Dollar Shawl, finished in just one week...very fast for lace shawls! I abandoned the thought of knitting a second shawl from the same pattern and splurged on a new design from Evelyn's website--the Icelandic Poppy Lace Shawl. I cast-on 3 days ago and should be finished by Monday at the latest. My body is protesting at the effort but I'm finding so much joy in knitting for others. I can't wait to start the 3rd shawl...whatever it may be :-)

I think this is what one could truly call the SPIRIT of Christmas. Merry, merry, Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

KAL Progress Report: Knits from the North Sea

The Lace Knitting group at The Yarn Haven has almost doubled in size with the beginning of our Fall KAL featuring projects from the new book Knits from the North Sea: Lace in the Shetland Tradition. I have already made my thoughts about the book more than clear so I won't repeat the rant. My challenge was to edit the instructions in the book to meet the needs of group members. I have newbies, beginner, and intermediate/advanced intermediate lace knitters with a varying range of knitting expertise, thus my task has not been exactly easy.

The KAL group has had 2 meetings thus far. My 2 novice lace knitters chose to knit the simplest scarf--Carol's Peaches--but were struggling with the mohair yarn the 1st night. They weren't present at the second meeting so I'm concerned they may have been scared away. I hope not. All the beginners except one (she's an expert knitter, just new to lace) are knitting the Cockleshell scarf at my suggestion. Every knitter has struggled with some aspect of the pattern. The multi-chart pattern has been confusing as has the unclear language of some of the chart symbols/pattern instructions. AT least one has abandoned the Cockleshell pattern for a more suitable beginner lace scarf pattern (not in the book). The two knitters who have started the High Country Wrap are also finding it very challenging/frustrating but are soldiering on. One chose to use the size 1 needles recommended in the pattern (I didn't know about that until she had already started) but was having a bit of a go at it and was considering switching up to a larger needle. I have two more newcomers planning to join the group at our next meeting later this week. One decided in advance to knit something else for her project. Smart lady :-)

I'm making progress on my Cockleshell scarf. According to the book I'm done with the first side and halfway through the second side. Of course this is not nearly long enough to be a scarf IMHO so I still need to decide what I want to do to extend the pattern--just keep knitting the same lace rep or change it up to a Seaman's-style scarf with a rib knit center section. I'm leaning towards the latter but I'll make the final decision when I get there.

While this pattern books lacks much, I still love knitting lace and mentoring others in the art of lace knitting. After all...

LACE KNITTING ROCKS!!!
KNIT ON!

Summertime Knitting

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


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


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

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

Book review: Knits from the North Sea

I haven't done much blogging lately but I have been doing a ton of knitting. Lace knitting. I owe many explanations and photos and I promise I will post them, but I'm a bit distracted right now by a new lace knitting book that was just released, Knits from the North Sea: Lace in the Shetland Tradition by Carol Rasmussen Noble and Margaret Leask Peterson. Sandy, my LYSO showed us a flier from the publisher at our lace knitting group a couple of months ago. From the flier the projects looked wonderful and based on the success of our spring KAL using a book group members agreed that this new book would be wonderful as the source for projects for our fall KAL. We decided to go for it, sight unseen. Note to self: never ever commit to a book or pattern for a KAL sight unseen ever again. PS. Wait to see what the real contents a book are before blowing big bucks on a copy. PPS. Don't trust that a book labeled Shetland lace will indeed contain Shetland lace projects. PPPS. Never buy a lace book authored by Carol Rasmussen Noble ever again---it is bad for one's blood pressure and quality of sleep. That woman has some mighty crazy ideas about lace knitting.

I have spent a serious amount of time over the past week trying to decipher, decode, and or otherwise make sense out of the content of this supposed Shetland lace book. It hasn't been easy. I forgot to take note of the author when making the initial decision to use this book for the LK group Fall KAL. I was reminded very fast when I turned the introductory Tips and Techniques section and saw the recommendation to only use straight needles (not circular) when knitting lace. GROAN! Oh no, that crazy lady. I didn't purchase her previous lace book as a newbie lace knitter based on that blanket statement. The consensus of the online (international) lace knitting community is that using circular needles is not only perfectly fine, but frequently necessary to accommodate the large number of stitches in a project. My current shawl project, the Aeolian Lace Shawl has ~450 sts at present. That just ain't gonna ever fit on Ms. Noble's 10" straight needles. But I digress.

I knew right away I was in for trouble upon looking at the first project, Carol's Mountain Stream Scarf. The knitter is instructed to use US1/2.25mm needles to knit a popular kid mohair/silk lace yarn, Douceur et Soie. Huh??? I have always used either a size 5 or 6 needle with the yarn as it has such a lofty halo from the mohair content. Trying to knit this stuff on a sz 1 could make a sane lace knitter suicidal, really! The whole book was filled with cra* like this. To make matters worse, very few of the designs used distinctive Shetland motifs, most were either plain vanilla, simply nice, or worse, from the Orenburg Russia lace tradition. If you can explain how that fits in a Shetland lace book I'd love to hear it. Don't tell me it's because both countries touch the North Sea cuz Orenburg is a far cry from the North Sea..like the whole of the Ural Mountains away. To make maters worse, all of CRN's designs are labelled and presented in such a way as to more closely reflect her Reno, NV home--not the Shetland Isles. Go figure?

My first reaction/recommendation is to save your money and don't waste it buying this book. Nothing in it is worth even the Amazon price of ~$17. But I have already committed to using this book for my KAL and the announcements are out so I have the unpleasant task of editing the errors and just plain nonsense and turning the projects into something my newbies can manage and my intermediate knitters will enjoy. Translation: much swatching and many long conversations with my LYSO on how to guide customers who plan to knit projects from the book. Martingale Press should pay me for all the work it has been fixing this mess. Never again I tell you.

I am knitting a couple of scarves from the book just so I can know how to guide the knitters in the group. The projects will be nice once I have finished editing the patterns so all is not lost. It's just a whole lot more work than I had planned on and the projects aren't what I had hoped for. Lesson learned. SIGH!

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 :-)

Hurray it's May!

May might just be the most perfect month out of the year. April is awesome, but there are still too many cold days so it can't be in 1st place. June has traditionally held 1st place for the best month of all in my mind, but that has been heavily influenced by the fact that my birthday is in June...and as a kid, school let out for the summer in June. June is still very good, but it does get hot in late June so I think I'm going to let it fall to 2nd place and grant May the top spot.


One of my reasons for adoring May is the flowers. You know the story...April showers bring May flowers...well, it is true! I have worked like a dog for about a month now trying to get my garden and yard into better shape. Most of the perennials have been dug up, divided, and replanted. The roses got a good hard pruning and it shows! They are shooting up like mad and are full of buds. The climbing Queen Elizabeth rose in the front bed is just starting to bloom. There were maybe 6 blooms today out of the 30+ on the bush. Just wait till Mother's Day next Sunday when the bush will be in peak bloom. Ah, it will be stunning. As for now, the pink roses are hard to pick out because of the abundance of blossoms on the azaleas this year. All the TLC I've given over the past several years is finally paying off. The puny things have become fat and glorious. They should do even better next year because I will have moved the rosebush to more spacious quarters, thus giving the azaleas more room to spread.


While I'm talking about flowers, I should identify today's photos. Up first is the exquisitely fragrant blue beaded iris---the State Flower of Tennessee. This hybrid has a delicate periwinkle hue and a delightfully sweet aroma that I find to be intoxicating. I want this scent in a bottle! When I came home 10 years ago this iris patch had one miserable clump clinging to the chainlink fence. It was surrounded by rocks, red clay, and the lawn and was well-shaded by a huge maple tree. The tree is gone, I turned the area along the fence into an authentic flower bed, and the iris patch has grown so much that I must dig and divide this fall. Digging iris is a chore, but I'm thrilled to have this one multiply to it's hearts content so I'm happy to dig.

The second photo is this year's pleasant surprise. You see about 3 1/2 yrs. ago I bought a bunch of spring flowering bulbs and planted them. The following year the tulips bloomed, so did the daffodils. Even the miniature narcissus and hyacinths bloomed. But the Dutch Irises did not. For the last 3 springs I have watched the green shoots of the Dutch Iris start to come up in October and November...growing bigger over the course of the winter and early spring (which seems very odd to me), but no flowers. I presumed things would be the same this year and planned to give up on them and pull the plants this summer. And that's when the things decided to flower. Surprise! The Dutch iris in the front bed are all in flower today. The ones in the shady bed in the back have buds, but no blooms yet. I think they need more sun so I will transplant them later this year.

I threw in the last photo to give you an idea of how one of my smaller aquilegia (columbine) plants looks in it's current covered-with-pink-blooms state. This is a Winky Rose acquilegia...one of 3 in my garden at present. Encouraged by the success of these columbine, i bought a new plant off the half-price "stressed plant" table at Lowe's last week. The new plant is a Nora Barlow which has a different shape to the blooms. There is one shoot with buds on it...the other taller shoots were spent and I trimmed them. The plant was a bit dry and pouting after a very cold night the day I bought it, but now in the garden she's perking up quite nicely. I also snagged a pack of pink snapdragons off the bargain table, but they were a bit more stressed being annuals. I potted them in Miracle-Gro Mix to baby them. Pots are useful in that I can move them around in the hopes of prolonging the life of the flowers once the temperatures start to sour and the snaps start to pout in the hot sun.

I've focused on reclaiming two major areas in the backyard over the last 2 weeks. One area is right behind the house where the English Ivy is trying to take over the world. I'm maybe half-way through the chore...and some of the scariest work is left to do...scary because it's the densest places where scary things/critter could be hiding. I'm being brave though and working on things now before the spiders really get going. Later in the summer it's way too terrifying for me to get in there ;-) The other spot is at the very back of the yard where the neighbor's formerly tall pine trees used to shade everything. Now with the trees gone, the entire area turned to nasty weeds and other native growth. Slowly, section by section, I have hauled countless wheelbarrow loads of weeds...with the roots also dug out by hand...out of that stretch and dumped into the far corner of the yard to "return to nature". It has been a massive task...and I'm not done, but the progress is really showing up. Saturday night I cleared out one area (~5-6 sq ft)and freed a wild dogwood tree from the clutches of a vicious weed called bedstraw. Today I rescued a second dogwood, but it was more work since it had competing "weed trees" also trying to smother it.

I have one more garden "surprise" to share, but I'll wait until the next post when I have downloaded the photos off my camera so you can see. With all the heavy yardwork I haven't made as much progress knitting as I would like. Frankly, I couldn't knit more as the pain and stiffness in my hands was the worst I've ever experienced. The fibro pain has been justifiably bad...and well-drugged, but I'm starting to see the effects of degenerative arthritis in several knuckles, esp. in my right hand. This is not good when I'm knitting with 20wt cotton thread and size 1 needles. Yikes! Yes, this is the Colonial Bouquet Doily from the August 1956 issue of Workbasket that I found in my collection. It is stunning. I have about 12 rows left to knit...photos will follow! I'm on the last repeat of the budding lace section of the Swallowtail Shawl..almost ready to switch to the Lily of the Valley border! I've added a few more rows to the Orkney plus I started a Fancy Fulness Shawl from Birgit's Knitting Delight Mystery KAL. The I hope to gift the FF to someone dear to me, so I won't say much here...lest the intended recipient find out about it! Sometimes surprises are wonderful :-)

Now that I've tried to cram a week's worth of stuff into one post...sorry guys! I promise to update more soon. Speaking of updates...did you notice that I've been fixing my sidebar? Yes, I've been working on my KAL buttons and links, the blog links, and other stuff over there. It's getting better but I still have lots more work to do. I haven't forgiven Blogger yet for lying to me about the saved back-ups..but I'll get there eventually. But...my friends have been wonderfully supportive...and have offered great tips on what to do. Gee, thanks guys!

And so it goes

It's Monday morning, St. Patrick's Day, so I suppose I should say "Top 'o the Morning to You!" But then that would be a terribly Irish thing for a little Dutch/Deutsch girl to do, now wouldn't it? My mother always wore *orange* on St. Patty's Day to make sure folks knew she was Dutch. I thought it was a bit strange then, but I think it's cool now. but enough of that....

The wild, weird weekend is over. Tennessee basketball fans are not happy. they did not get to see their team play in the SEC tourney because of the change of venue required by the tornado that hit downtown Atlanta. Then the team lost in the closing seconds of the semis to Arkansas, which was stunning. Even more stunning was the fact that the worst team in the conference this year, Georgia, won the SEC tournament by overcoming outrageous odds. You have to be happy for them, because it was such an amazing feat! The the NCAA announced the brackets for the "Big Dance" last night and we got a no. 2 seed (not happy, but not surprised) in the East bracket...which has the strongest teams including No. 1 North Carolina. That's like ranking TN 8th, or the lowest among the No. 2 seeds. That a really rotten deal. Placing the Vols in the East sends them first to Birmingham where they should win their 1st two games, then on to Charlotte. Upsets notwithstanding, the Vols will have to get past a tough Louisville team to arrive at the elite 8 with the golden opportunity to play North Carolina...in North Carolina. Good luck guys...you're gonna need it :-) It was pretty interesting watching Bruce Pearl & the guys maintain their composure at the post-announcement press interviews after getting such a raw deal. So much for having the highest RPI and playing the toughest non-conference schedule in the nation...and winning almost all of the games. It didn't pay off as much as it was supposed to.

So enough about the Vols, let's talk knitting :-) Being sick with a nasty virus and lots of basketball tournament games to watch make for productive knitting time. I just finished off the 1st 100g ball of yarn on my Orkney Pi yesterday. I'm up to row 154, which is the latter part of the 4th repeat of the swirling diamonds/640sts section. I should start the 5th and final repeat tonight, which places me a couple of days ahead of schedule and ready for the next clue which I think comes out on Friday. Designing Pi shawls by inserting various lace patterns into the distinct sections of the shawl is not as simple as one would think. Oh, the process of choosing your favorite laces and using them is simple, but getting the right combination to produce an cohesive and esthetically-pleasing look is challenging. i say this because I've seen some less than attractive (to my view) Pi shawls. But trust Liz Lovick to know just how to put classic Shetland Lace patterns together to get that just right look. It's a great shawl!

With the Orkney Pi being so time consuming, and sickness keeping me at home (no need for portable knitting), the Swallowtail Shawl has been neglected for more than a week. I'm using the white Jaggerspun Zephyr I had in the stash left from the Spring Things Shawl which I frogged because I ended up not liking the design. I knew I had an issue with the lace patterns chosen for Spring Things, but I also blamed the yarn for my unhappy experience. I just couldn't see what it was that makes so many knitters go "Zany for Zephyr." I used Zephyr for one of my earliest shawls, a Nancie Wiseman design, and it turned out OK, but not wonderful in my view. But the idea of knitting Lily of the Valley nupps in white lace yarn has been in my head for more than a year now, so the white Zephyr seemed perfect for Swallowtail. To cut to the end of the story, I get it. After knitting the upper body of the Swallowtail with the Zephyr, I now get why people adore this yarn. It is wonderful for lace work!

Success in lace knitting is in the details. Each little detail must be evaluated, then carefully combined to yield success. You have to choose the right fiber(s), the right yarn, the right needles, and the right patterns. When one or more of these is off, then knitting is frustrating and the result less than pleasing. Find the right combination and knitting lace becomes a joy to work and the project a treasure. You don't have to use the most expensive yarn or the most complex or fancy pattern to knit a stunning piece of lace. But when a project is thoughtfully planned then executed with reasonable precision (not perfection), the end result can't help but be something wonderful. My somethings wonderful are starting to accumulate now that I'm a confirmed lace knitting addict, and I'm amazed at the joy these little beauties bring into my everyday life. It's something wonderful indeed!

Merry Christmas!

Another Christmas Day is coming to a close and I can't help but reflect back on what's happened. The long-awaited socks for Daddy were unwrapped, not with surprise, but with a great deal of joy. Daddy put them on immediately last night and declared them perfect. Ever the critical eye, I thought they looked just a smidge on the snug side. Next time I'll try either a slightly fatter yarn or a few more stitches for some extra give. They also looked a little snug across the toes. They didn't feel too tight and Daddy said they weren't, but once again, I'll add maybe 1/2" on the next pair. He wore the socks with his dress loafers when we went out today and he showed them off to everyone. For as much as I did not enjoy knitting those socks I know I have to knit another pair for him very soon. It's the very least I can do to help his poor aching and sensitive feet find a little comfort.

I showed mother what I had knit on her lace stole thus far. I have dubbed my adaptation of the HeartStrings Scotch Thistle Lace Stole pattern Thistle's Epistle. I kind of like the ring to it, and I got into knitting an adaptation because I didn't go back and read the pattern instructions (the "epistle"). Her response was favorable, although she was so tired and grouchy that any hint of a positive response was a miracle. But, since the stole wasn't going to be under the tree, I gave her a new set of Wolfgang Puck knives--ones that are sharp and safe, unlike the scary things she's using now. I refuse to touch those knives--scary!

A few days ago I was feeling the need to knit a little something simple, yet lacy as a perk me up alternative to the big shawls and stoles I have OTN. I was surfing the FOs at Ravelry and someone posted a scarf by a popular lace designer, Sivia Harding. Off to Sivia's website I went in a flash, threw open the lace files and coughed up some cash! (My apologies to Mr. Clemens, ahem) There are 3 Harding designs I'm eager to knit, 2 of which are med-lg shawls. The other is this sweet beaded scarf called Angel Pearls, knit from a single skein of Kid Silk Haze. After a little math and some scary yarn manipulations I turned a cone of cobweb wt. baby alpaca singles into a triple-stranded center-pull ball. The yarn is a rich golden yellow so I chose silver-lined gold beads to go with it and I cast on. Failure to concentrate did necessitate tinking a row here and there, but I have 1.5 repeats of the center chart completed and things look good. The yarn is a bit tricky to work with as it's very slippery and easy to split the strands, but the fabric it produces is lusciously soft and enhances the lace. The best part of this scarf design--it's knit in one piece from start to finish with no grafting or provisional cast-ons or anything complicated. I'm finding such designs in lace to be hard to come by, so this is a big deal.

My Christmas was everything I had hoped for. I knew what most of my presents were beforehand, but Mom did surprise me with a few things from Coldwater Creek. I love everything I received, but I'm especially liking the new pajamas. A nice, heavy cotton jersey, the red pants are covered in preppy plaid and green triangle "trees" with a white top emblazoned with the word Celebrate right across the "girls". My "big" present was a red suede jacket, which I adore, but I Bet I wear the PJs more ;-D

Ho Ho Ho, it was a very Merry Christmas after all!

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!!!

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 :-)

Arrrgh!

Arrrgh! That's the word today. I got it from a reliable news source (Al Roker on the Today show) that's it's International Speak Like a Pirate Day. And you thought I was about to tell you about some huge knitting mistake didn't you? HaHaHa...... Actually things are pretty quiet around here. It's been almost a week since I cast on for the Icarus Shawl and I've made steady progress each day. Today is officially Day 7 of knitting and I'm starting the 5th repeat of Chart 1. I'm up to 250+ sts. OTN and the knitting, while certainly not challenging, hasn't been nearly as tedious as I had anticipated. Pretty much this section is about not goofing up the yo, k1, yo increases that start anew with each pattern repeat. The rest is just count to seven, knit, knit, knit.

But with simplicity comes relatively rapid progress. It would be really cool if I could be finished with the knitting by this time next week. I might even finish my Icarus *before* Regenia finishes hers (gasp!) So how's it coming along Reg???? At least Regenia has a special occasion to wear her Icarus while I'm just knitting it to knitting another shaw out of great yarn. The Lace-a-licious has been a delight to knit with even though it is super skinny stuff. The size 3 needle I'm using is just about right--a 4 would be too big for sure.

I've got several KALs casting-on next week and I've added a few lace yarns to the stash in anticipation of my next projects, whatever they may be. Richard at ColourMart has been posting new yarns lately and I've succumbed to a couple of temptations. I received my 1st order on Tuesday, an Italian cashmere/cotton blend in a yummy deep amethyst purple. Even right of the cone this stuff is wonderfully soft. I'm knitting a bookmark swatch right now to see how is washes and blocks before committing the yarn to a shawl project. A few days ago Richard posted some more cashmere/silk blends in lots of colors. I opted for a cone of a soft pink that should match some 100% silk yarn I already have. I feel totally spoiled to be able to have such beautiful fibers at a price even I can afford...on occasion :-)

Knitting on!

Latecomer

Every Southern Lady knows the value of being fashionably late to parties and similar social events. Not terribly late, just a few minutes...say maybe 10 or 15 minutes after the stated time on the invitation. It allows you to make your grand entrance, to stand out from the crowd, or at the extreme, to blatantly draw attention to yourself. I'm certainly not trying to blatantly draw attention to myself, but I am a bit of a latecomer to this party. "What party?" you ask. Why, the Let's Knit the Icarus Shawl Party!


Yes, I have succumbed to what became an online knitting phenom. When Miriam Felton's Icarus Shawl was published in the Summer 2006 issue of Interweave Knits knitters everywhere went Icarus-crazy. Many lace knitters rushed to knit this design and folks who have never even thought about knitting lace suddenly decided to take the plunge. Soon a blog-based KAL was formed and the craze was on. Last summer knitting Icarus was the hip thing to do. I dunno, maybe that's why I didn't knit it? Or maybe it was because most of the design was rather plain, with the interesting stuff coming in only at the end of the shawl. My brain said boring. So I let everyone else Icarus-along and I knit other lacy stuff--like the MS2, which was spectacular. (Funny thing, this year the KAL phenom was MS3, which wasn't even remotely as awesome a design IMHO).

OK, so why knit Icarus now? This lowly shawl that has now risen to grace the cover on Interweave's new anniversary book and spawned them to form blog-based KALs for all their knitting books released this year. Why now, Kristina? Well, it was the yarn. I made an impulse purchase of some hand-dyed alpaca lace yarn from Sheri at the Loopy Ewe (an awesome place to buy skinny yarn). The yarn is the new Lace-a-licious from JKnits in a colorway called Wyoming. Basically, the yarn is shades of putty, terracotta and rose--all muted and very soft. The colorway reminded me of the rock cliffs in southern Utah at sunrise and brought back fond memories of my time living out west. The yarn is an extrafine baby alpaca and it's on the skinny side of laceweight--almost cobweb if you ask me. I cast-on and started knitting a rectangular shawl but the lace pattern didn't show off the beauty of the yarn and the rectangular shape result in zebra-like striped pooling. So I needed a triangle shawl that would do well with the handpainted yarn, something rather plain. That's when the lightbulb moment happened...Icarus!

I still had my doubts about the boring factor, but then I reminded myself that simple could mean "fast-knit" rather than "boring." When I pulled the pattern off the bookshelf and checked out the yarn specs, I knew it was meant to be--alpaca yarn on size 3 needles. Yup, perfect. So I cast-on late Friday night and knit a few rows. I'm almost through with the 2nd repeat of Chart 1 and I'm liking what I see. The design does require a bit more attention than I expected, and I did have one ugly tinking session of a couple of rows when I missed a decrease and everything got shifted and off-count. But, now that Icarus had my attention and my respect I expect things should go well. I have a couple of other shawls I'm working on so I can switch off when if I get too bored.

I know my friends Diana and Regenia are knitting away on Icarus, so I'm not alone at the party. Please pass the chocolate and let the music play on (I'm thinking American Classic stuff like Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett maybe...good party music). A toast to Icarus! Knit on!!!

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