Can you have too many shawls?

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was not to knit more shawls. I love knitting lace. I love knitting shawls. I love wearing shawls. But how many does one person need? I have a whole shelf of them in one closet. The more delicate and complicated the lace, the more I love it and the less I wear it. Since I live in the northeast, where it is cold most of the year (even in summer, where there is a tendency to over-air-condition public places), I almost always have a shawl with me to throw over the other layers. But I rarely get "dressed up" and the lacier, dressier shawls seem to languish in the closet. But I can't resist the urge to knit more of them!

I also have a hard time resisting a puzzle. So when Kalinumba announced the Wings of Horus KAL, it seemed like a natural. There was even a cone of light blue Zephyr sitting calmly in the stash, perfect for this project. So I succumbed.

But then something terrible happened. Renee of Goddess Knits announced the Anniversary Mystery Shawl 09. Since my previous attempt at one of Renee's shawls ended in a trip to the Frog Pond, this was an opportunity to redeem myself. And... there happened to be some cream-colored Colourmart cashmere available in exactly the right weight. How could I NOT?

Both projects are proceeding nicely. There were some scary moments with Wings of Horus. In order to download each of the weekly clues, we had to solve a riddle involving ancient Egyptian mythology. I solved the first one quickly, but the subsequent riddles were more difficult. Thank goodness for the KAL group on Ravelry! Thanks to Google and some hints provided by more clever and knowledgeable group members, disaster was averted. In fact, there were a few awful hours when I thought that after knitting the first five clues, I wouldn't be able to get the final one! As much fun as it was, I may have to remember those feelings of dread the next time I consider doing something like that. There are just about 20 more rows to finish, but by now there are over 500 stitches in each row, so it may take a while.

And speaking of shawls, I never blogged about the large, lovely, soft alpaca Klabauter shawl from this past winter. That was another KAL by Monika Eckert. (I was seduced into making that one after my experience with Moni's Slow Bee Mystery Shawl, now available as the Icicle Lace Shawl.) It was a fast knit, done in Lavish Superfine Alpaca in a mint green. The yarn is a little heavier weight than most of my lace shawls, but Moni was very clever with the design – she offered edging options at several different points along the way, so there was a lot of flexibility in the size of the finished shawl. It is large enough to snuggle up into, and I expect it to become a staple of my wardrobe in the future.

Unfortunately, it has one problem. The alpaca sheds. I wore it out last night over a black knit top, and by the end of the evening not only did I have little wisps of greenish-white fluff all over my formerly black top, but even the sleeve of my husband's sport jacket was covered. (He had the misfortune of sitting next to me.) I am a little afraid to machine-wash the shawl, but hand-washing didn't remove the loose fibers when I originally blocked it, so I'm not sure where to go from here. Suggestions welcome!

Cabling on the Edge

In the many years I have knit sweaters with cables, I never knit (or even thought of knitting) a cable right at the edge. But the beautiful and original pattern by Anna Dalvi for the Mystic Light Shawl KAL includes a cable along the short edges of the triangular shawl. The cable provides for nice firm edges, as well as complementing the design, which also includes a cable down the center.

It was quite daunting to do a cable right at the edge at the beginning of the Knit-Along. Upon the advice of my sister, who managed to start this shawl before I did, I learned how to do the cables without a needle using this tutorial by Wendy Johnson. What a revelation that was! Once you get the hang of it, it is far easier than looking for the cable needle, juggling it around, knitting the cable, and putting it down again (hopefully in a place where it won't get lost before the next cable). It felt awkward at the beginning or the end of a row, but after a few tries it seemed perfectly natural.

Here is the finished shawl and a detailed view of the cables:











Pattern: Mystic Light by Anna Dalvi
Yarn: 2 skeins Fleece Artist Merino Sock 2/6 (764 yards)
Needles: US #7
Size: 34" x 68"

Another interesting aspect of this pattern is that it calls for fingering weight yarn, so it went much faster than most lace. The yarn (amazingly enough, I used the yarn suggested by the designer) is nice and soft, with good drape, and it should offer a little more warmth than lace-weight fabrics.

My very next project after completing this shawl is the Cabled Tee, a short-sleeve sweater with a cable down the front that branches up along the neck. Even after looking at the picture, it didn't occur to me that the cable along the v-neck was right at the edge. (Surely there was a stitch or two border beyond the cable???) In fact, the cable is right at the edge, just like the shawl. It really isn't any harder than a standard cable, though it can be tricky to move those stitches around without dropping the end stitch in the process.

What's next? A break from cables, though I'm sure there will be more in the not-too-distant future. Yesterday was the Cast-on for the Slow Bee Mystery Shawl, and here is the first half of the first clue. The recommended color is "something really cold, like white or natural yarn, icy blue or very dark violet or dark blue" with seed beads. After considering both Teal and Ice Blue Zephyr, both with silver-lined crystal beads, I finally decided on the teal, though both remind me of this photo that I took in Antarctica:

Icelandic Lace - Ready for Winter

The beginning of fall is always a difficult time for me. It means that the glorious warm sunshine of summer is coming to an end, and the frigid gloom of winter is about to descend after a brief autumnal interlude. On my personal calendar we have two months each of spring, summer, and fall, and then six months of winter. O that it were reversed!

This year I greeted fall, which begins, according to my personal calendar, on the first of September, by knitting the Icelandic Lace Shawl. The yarn isn't terribly heavy, so it isn't difficult to knit even when the weather is still warm in summer's last gasps. The neutral colors – cream and several shades of gray and brown – are certainly reminiscent of stark winter landscapes, a real contrast to the spring-like light green and yellow of the Bee Fields Shawl!

This shawl was finished in record time, but I'm not sure why. The pattern wasn't difficult, though I did make several mistakes, and despite some serious tinking there are still a few which will remain. It may just be that I was able to spend more time on it than usual because it didn't require heavy concentration.

Here are a couple of before and after (blocking) pictures. You can see why the errors didn't show up clearly in the "before" state.













(The pinkish and yellow colors in the photo on the right are from the blocking squares under the shawl and not the shawl itself.)

I did make several changes to the pattern. About half way through I became nervous that it would be too small. Because of the interesting construction it was tricky to figure out if I could just add some extra rows, but in desperation I tried. I also switched from #6 to #7 needles at the same time. In the "edging" part (the edging is a rather wide section beyond the wide white band) I added a couple of extra rows to the brown bands and then repeated the medium and dark gray bands (though narrower than in the first part). (I also used the dark gray for the final bind-off instead of black.) I did the optional edging at the top in order to obtain another inch, but I think it finishes off the shawl nicely.

After all that, the final dimensions are very close to the dimensions given in the pattern (76" x 37"). That seems odd, because I used the yarn called for in the pattern, I was using #6 needles instead of the recommended #4's, and my gauge is generally average (though I confess to not swatching this time). It may be that a more aggressive blocking would gain another inch or two in each direction, but that decision will have to wait until it is completely dry and I can try it on.

Even if it is a little smaller than I would like (and how often that seems to be the case!) I expect to get a lot of use out of this shawl when the Season of Suffering arrives this year.

Swan Lake Update

Here is Swan Lake, displayed as worn by the best available model:

I'm sorry I doubted Melanie's design – right up to the moment of draping it over the hanger. I really wasn't sure about the "asymmetry thing."

Pattern: Swan Lake Stole ("Mystery Stole 3) by Melanie Gibbons
Yarn: Colourmart Smooth Silk 8/56NM, doubled, 220 gm
Needles: Addi Lace Needles size 3.75 (US #5)
Size: 23" x 85"

According to Melanie's description of the pattern, the pointed end begins with the traditional Wings of the Swan lace pattern, which splits in half and continues up the sides of the point and along the edges of the first two thirds of the stole as a border... In the ballet, "there are several dances by the swan maidens, but this one is done by four dancers, each holding to the next one, moving in unison doing the pas de chat step. Pas de Chat means literally step of the cat, so using the Cat’s Paw lace design seemed natural in this stole. The final third of the stole is a wing. It obviously fits as the swan part of the theme, but the single wing with the more formal first part of the stole also alludes to Odette’s cursed existence as both swan and princess."

Sigh.

If you haven't seen the ballet recently, here is an excerpt with Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn:



and an excerpt from an alternative version by the Rudolf Nureyev and Miss Piggy:


and another from the extraordinary Ballet Trockadero:

Added at 7:15 PM:
In response to a comment, here is a picture of the back of the stole:

Last Days of the Swan

Today is a milestone. The Swan Lake Stole (the stole formerly known as "Mystery Stole 3") is officially finished. It has been pinned out on puzzle blocks with blocking wires and pins and is waiting patiently to dry. What a back-breaking task! (Who ever said that knitting isn't hard work???)
The jury is still out on whether I like it or not. The "wing" section is beautiful; here is a close-up:
In fact, both sections are beautiful – I'm just not sure I like them together. I can imagine doing two more stoles, one using a symmetrical version of the first part, and another with two wings. In fact, when Melanie writes up the pattern for sale, I think she is going to offer all three options. The true test will be to see it worn, after it is finished blocking.

And now onto other things!