Category Archives: lace

Rose is slowly getting over her cold just as I start to feel like death warmed up, but the positive side to this is that she will toddle off and play with her big brothers for a bit so that I can Get Things Done. Whilst she had a lie in this morning, I wrapped most of the presents I had to do, soaked the shawl and then when she woke up, left her to her brothers while I pinned out the shawl.

The problem I’m now finding is that there are very few safe blocking spaces in this house. When Rose was tiny, it was easy to pin out a shawl on the floor and not worry about her grabbing the pins. Now I’ve had to resort to using my bed and hoping that the shawl will dry before bedtime! Though alpaca dries quickly, so I should be fine for the big FO post tomorrow.

My package from Sonya, my downstream partner in the Ravelry Worldwide Shawl Exchange, arrived today! It was posted in New Zealand on Tuesday. Which totally beats my rocket-powered yarn from Canada.

I am gobsmacked by my lovely shawl. The pattern is Filigrano by Birgit Freyer and the yarn is a mohair/merino blend from Touch Yarns.

I also got some delicious New Zealand chocolate (which I may have half eaten already…) and some lovely merino/silk laceweight yarn in my favourite colour and I feel thoroughly spoilt.

Sorry to disappoint you, Pip, but the something green is for the shoulders, not the head! More on this little project next week. *is a tease*

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Thank you for the comments on yesterday’s button post. Rubbishknitter‘s comment reminded me about the stretchy buttonholes on the Peapod Baby Cardigan I knitted. I used tiny buttons in the size stated in the pattern and the blardy thing never stayed fastened and hardly got any wear as a result. And now it’s too small. *pouts*

I do like the contrast of the wooden buttons against the yarn, though, so agree with Kai that they are perfect in that respect! Yesterday I ordered new buttons a couple of millimetres smaller which have now arrived, but now that the cardigan is dry I might test the buttonholes for stretchiness first. Another case of watch this space.

*clings to website*

The server at my hosting company has been down for the past 12 hours or so. Hopefully it’s now safe again. Ironically, I still managed to get spam comments when I couldn’t even get onto the site myself!

Anyway, the Prairie Rose Lace Shawl is a-blocking! I found a corner of the dining room and arranged chairs around it so that if Rose happened to somehow get into there alone, both she and the shawl were safe. It’s practically dry now, so there’ll be a nice photo session to do this weekend.

I also decided to finally splash out on a whole bottle of wool wash for blocking my knitted items after surviving on buying odd sachets which is convenient in that it’s all ready measured out, but much more expensive! I found Eucalan for sale over here at Addicted2Knitting so bought a 100ml bottle on Monday. On Tuesday a parcel arrived containing a 500ml bottle and a note apologising that the smaller bottles were out of stock so they’d sent me a larger one instead at no extra cost. There’s not much to say to that except what fabulous customer service and I expect I’ll be adding to my stash from their shop very soon.

The Prairie Rose Lace Shawl is all done, bar the blocking. I cast off the stitches yesterday morning and now I just need to find a baby-proof space somewhere in this house and perform the magical transformation from knitted scribble to floaty light shawl of wondrousness.

Slowly, but surely, the Prairie Rose Lace Shawl is getting bigger. I have just completed the fourth repeat of the main chart, which for the original pattern is the point where you start the edging. However, this only makes for a shawlette-size and I want something a bit bigger. So now every pattern repeat I complete is a bonus and I’m vaguely hoping to do eight, but will see how I feel as it’s already taking five minutes to do the wrong-side, all purl, rows. (The World Cup has its uses as there’s a handy timer on the TV right in front of me at all times. )

I am also planning to fiddle with the edging pattern. If you can see on the original pattern, it looks like two rows of leaves on the edging as there’s an edging set-up chart to work beforehand. As the rest of the shawl has only single rows of leaves between the “roses”, I think it looks out of place. So I’m omitting the set-up chart and moving straight on to the edging instead. This will either look splendid or very rubbish, but that’s what lifelines are for!

Surprising as it may be, I actually don’t have a lot of WIPs stashed away all over the place. I used to get regular bouts of startitis, but having limited knitting time has curbed the urge to cast on several projects in a day. Well, that’s a lie. I still get the urge, but I don’t have the time to act on it. But even with raging startitis, any project that was left untouched on the needles for a fair length of time tended to be frogged because I usually wanted the needles for something else shiny that had caught my eye.

So it’s a rare project that’s left in my knitting bag for two years in the hope that it might eventually get finished.

And it’s two years to the day since I started the Goddess Knits Mystery Shawl. It got put aside for, in rough order: other major lace knitting, festive knitting and then baby knitting. And now there is just no way on earth it will ever get finished, I fear. It’s a beautiful pattern, very much choose-your-own-adventure with the different pattern choices for each section and I do want to knit it one day. But quite honestly, I am no longer in love with the bright red yarn or the complicated stitch pattern that I chose to do for the final section and it’s taking up a pair of splendid Addi Lace circulars which could be used for other knitting (eventually).

Dear readers, it’s time for me to muster up the courage, pull the needles from the hundreds of stitches and wind up several metres of skinny yarn.

I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday! Thanks to the Bank Holiday weekend and Mr B taking an extra day off yesterday (we went to Legoland on what turned out to be the wettest day of the week, naturally!), I’m all of a kerfuffle.

But at least I have found a lace pattern!

This is the Prairie Rose Lace Shawl by the wonderful Evelyn Clark. Pattern available from The Knitter’s Book of Wool or The Knitter Issue 16.

Roo also suggested Miralda’s Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia which almost made me change my mind again. It’s a gorgeous pattern. I even have my own and it indeed makes a beautiful gift. But, like Ene’s Scarf, it’s worked from the edging upwards and can only be knitted in one size. So once you cast on, you’re committing yourself to knitting the whole thing. Whereas the Prairie Rose Shawl gives me a little more leeway; if I find I’m short of time, I can do fewer pattern repeats.

I’m knitting it with Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 in “Aegean Blue” which is so far delicious to knit with. Slightly slippery and no splitting. I had planned to use it for the Creatures of the Reef Shawl. Ironically, that’s another bottom-up shawl, but it wasn’t on my list of possibilities anyway as I think it’s a bit of an acquired taste. I love it myself, but maybe not everyone wants to be covered in crabs…

Incidentally, I never did write about what happened to the Ene’s Scarf I knitted. I wore it back in March last year to my booking-in appointment at the hospital and during the process – which was very long and involved lots of prodding – I took it off and hung it on the back of my chair. Well, you can guess what happened. I forgot to pick it up. I rang the hospital, checked with Lost Property and all sorts, but it was gone. I hope the thieving scumbag dishonest person who is now wearing it appreciates it… one day I will knit another in the same yarn and pretend it’s the old one.

I like knitting books. A lot. I wrote a post a few years back about my favourite books, but since then my book selection has expanded (and I have also painted my shelves):

Some of the books on my shelf of four years ago have gone on to better homes where they will be appreciated far more. Others have become lifetime residents that will have to be prised from my cold, dead fingers and still more newbies have squeezed into the spaces left by others until every inch of the shelf is full and I need to get rid of some books if I want to buy more. (Or give in and move onto a second shelf, of course…)

I think that list is a good reflection of where my knitting was at that time. If I was to write the same post today, I’d probably get rid of at least one of those choices in favour of a lace book (and also give Elizabeth Zimmermann’s books a whole post to themselves for she is now truly my hero). At that point in time I was still on the brink of discovering the wonders of lace knitting; now, however, I have a good half-dozen lace books and that it where my problem lies.

I have signed up for the Ravelry Worldwide Shawl Exchange. I have something of a lace bug at the moment and liked the idea of knitting in a different colour than I’d normally pick (*cough* purple *cough*) and maybe an unusual pattern. But I am just stumped as to what to choose at the moment. Every time I pick up a book to choose a pattern, I am overwhelmed as to the possibilities of shawlage. Do I go for something fancy from Victorian Lace Today or something traditional from either Folk Shawls or Knitted Lace of Estonia? A Gathering of Lace has fantastic patterns, but they are mainly ginormous and I have less than 20 weeks to knit this shawl (which is why I’m not even contemplating choosing a pattern from Heirloom Knitting!).

Sometimes, dear readers, you can have too many books.

A concentrated knitting effort over the weekend meant I could finally block the shawl this morning.

I’m always amazed how lace grows once it’s wet (and somewhat relieved in this case, because I was worried that it seemed a bit titchy once it was cast off) and the plastic bag arrangement I laid out for the shawl to block on is slightly too small. Now I just have to resist the urge to poke at it til it dries.

I had planned to spend many happy evenings knitting while on holiday, but I didn’t open my knitting bag once. So the Dream in Color Baby shawl has only really grown since I got back home.

It’s a familiar, top-down triangle style, which I love knitting. It’s been a looong time since I knitted lace, so it’s also lovely to play with tiny yarn again.

I have a huge ball of yarn to use, but I feel this will end up shawlette size or I’ll be knitting until Christmas.

Take one last look at the green and leafy shawl as it currently looks and wave goodbye:

It’s not working. I think my idea would work if it was a larger shawl and I had more yarn to play with and room to manoeuvre, but this is a wee shawlette. So it’s being ripped back to the leaves and put in the corner while I think what to do with it.

Meanwhile, I have switched to tiny needles and fine yarn:

The Dream in Color Baby in “Pansy Golightly” won the Battle Of The Laceweight. I’m using 2.5mm needles which is the smallest I’ve ever used for laceweight yarn, but so far it’s working. And it’s not a really lacy lace yarn, IYSWIM. It has 700 yards per 100g, which puts it in the “light fingering” category – to me, anyway. (Does light fingering sound vaguely rude? ) The pattern is one I’ve had charted out for a while and was never sure if it was worth knitting up as it is pretty plain. So I’m hoping a variegated yarn will make it special.

These days I don’t often get the chance to pull out my yarn stash and have a fondle, so it lives pretty much undisturbed in the cupboard under the stairs, a bit like a woolly Harry Potter. This causes problems when the gas meter needs reading, however, and today I had to pull the whole lot out so that the meter could be read and I took the opportunity to look at my lace stash.

This box is all yarn that I have earmarked for lace knitting, either because it is actual lace yarn or because it’s too nice for socks. It’s grown over the years because, unlike socks, a proper laceweight shawl takes a long time and much concentration to knit and I always seem to find the temptation of a quick project stopping me, whereas buying the yarn is relatively quick and painless. Plus I have accumulated some as gifts, which wasn’t my fault (and I’m not complaining).

Even now, I’m knitting lace with DK weight yarn because the whole thing will take a matter of a week or so to finish (if I can work out the maths, but that’s another post!) and will still be lacy and lovely. But the fine yarn beckons. Maybe the cotton/cashmere from Colourmart that has about 3,000 metres to 150g or even the 2ply alpaca that comes from a named mother and daughter pair of alpacas (they’re called Magic and Lara, because I know someone will want to know!). Or the squidgy Dream in Color Baby which will need a fairly simple pattern because it’s variegated, but will be like wearing a cloud. Maybe I just need to do some more fondling to help me to decide.

Last week we had glorious blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Today we’ve had hail and rain and gloom. But there are green leaves on my needles, so there’s still a little bit of spring somewhere.

Thanks for the comments on the last post’s mysterious knitted thing. It is indeed a toy, but what it is can’t be revealed just yet, in part because I am awaiting eyes and a nose, so it currently has no expression and looks rather pathetic (if something without a face can have any expression, that is).

So instead of creating interesting knitted widgets over the weekend, I pulled out my old design notebooks which had been gathering dust over the past year while I was growing a baby. I’ve been mulling over a few ideas of late and intended to make a start after Christmas, but I’ve mentioned before how a certain person had other ideas about me having any free time. Now all that’s stopping me are the normal baby interruptions, apparently they’re most likely to occur just when I’ve just had an eureka moment and need to get it on paper IMMEDIATELY before it falls out of my brain never to return.

I always knew there was a reason why I kept all the little oddments of yarn from old projects, even the tiniest bits. I used to design using the project yearn, but when it’s been frogged in disgust several times, it ends up looking very tired and sorry for itself. So using random yarn in the right weight to work out the technical part of a pattern is very clever and is a good reason to have bags of tiny balls of yarn. Now the project yarn is saved for “best” and only ripped out if it doesn’t suit the pattern or – and this is quite common – I make a cock up mistake.

Currently my designing is making me wish I’d paid more attention in maths and not spent my time doodling all over my workbook. But it’s lovely to play with yarn again and setting myself another challenge after my Olympic knitting.

I wasn’t planning on knitting anything lacy or shawlish this year as my concentration levels are pretty rubbish at the moment and stocking stitch is my new best friend. But Diane told me about the Socktopus Mystery Shawl knitalong on Twitter and because the shawl uses less than 400 metres of fingering/4ply yarn, it really shouldn’t take too long and I’ll have something nice to get baby sick on at the end of it.

So week one has been posted and I have swatched. Not entirely sure about the yarn choice as the pattern doesn’t seem to “pop”. I might change to sock yarn; I have plenty in my stash after all!

Almost ready to be revealed to the world, the Lily of the Valley scarf is currently laying on a towel, pinned into complete submission.

Strictly speaking, this is my final project of 2008, not my first one of 2009, as I started knitting it on 26th December. But it’s not for me and isn’t selfish. Well, maybe a little.

This pattern, the Lily of the Valley scarf, was the one project – other than the gorgeous cover shawl – which really stood out when I was first given my copy of Knitted Lace of Estonia. And it coincided nicely with the UK Swap and needing to knit something suitable for my swap partner.

Ideally, I would have liked to have used the Jojoland Cashmere specified in the pattern. I do have some stashed, but it’s not the right colour. After a bit of a search, though, I found that Malabrig(i)o Laceweight has the same meterage and comes in better colours. Despite the colour name (Emerald), the yarn is more peacock/teal. And knitted up, it is hard to tell that it’s not cashmere. It’s incredibly soft. The yarn is a little bit uneven in places; it does have thicker and thinner spots, but they’re not noticeable in the scarf, just when I come to p5tog for a nupp and then think that I have too many stitches because there’s one thick one taking up loads of space.

I’m pretty much halfway through the scarf now. I’m aiming for a pattern repeat a day, which is a nice relaxed pace and will still mean it’s finished well before the deadline.

I have so many lace patterns I want to knit. Unfortunately, things are conspiring this year to stop me doing any lace knitting other than socks. My Dolphin Scarf has barely grown and the list of patterns I am coveting just gets bigger. As does my stash of laceweight yarn…

I think I’ve found my shawly nemsis now, though. I have bought The Princess Shawl pattern from Heirloom Knitting.

It is absolutely beautiful. And terrifying. Seriously, it tells me so on the back:

The Princess Shawl is inspired by one presented to Alexandra, Princess of Wales by Shetland in 1863. It is one of the most challenging projects for lace knitters available.

*whimpers*

The pattern comes in a 24 page booklet AND with four A3 charts. The recommended needle size if I knit the pattern in the suggested yarn is 1.5mm. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Probably! But when I do knit it, it’ll be the most rewarding knitting I’ll ever do.

Finally I get to knit some lace!

I’ve had this skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk in my stash for ages. It’s gorgeous yarn. It has the feel of silk with some extra “give” – last time I knit with pure silk I found the yarn snapped if far too eaily for my liking. So this yarn has the added bonus of not needing to be treated like it’s made of bone china!

Sea Silk in Ocean Colourway

The pattern I am knitting is the Dolphin Lace scarf from Victorian Lace Today. I think it’s nicely appropriate, given that the yarn is made with seacell and is in a colourway called Ocean! Though unless I tell everyone I see, I guess it’ll have to remain something for me to titter over on my own. Knitting. It’s just one laugh after another.

Progress is fairly slow at the moment. There are two charts – one for the centre of the shawl (which is incredibly easy), and one for the edging (which isn’t). The problem is that the left-hand edging is knit one row after the right hand, if that makes any sense. When I designed the Pomegranate shawl, I had two edging charts, so that the left and right edging could be knit at the same time. I’m not sure how I could rejig this chart so that I could do the same thing, so instead I reversed the shaping for the left hand edging by using ssk instead of k2tog, which seems to have worked.

I’ve also swatched for another zippy jacket, which will be very simple and plain and my mindless knitting for a while. And both of these projects are as far removed from socks as possible!