Icelandic Lace Shawl photos

It never ceases to amaze me how much magic is involved in the blocking process. Here are some photos of the completed shawl.

It is soft and light and beautiful and should be a pleasure to wear. Or maybe I should just leave it folded over the sofa as an objet d'art.

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.

'Tis easier to knit than to tink

One advantage of a shawl that starts at the tip and gets wider is that if you make a mistake before the pattern is firmly in your head, it is no big deal to tink out a few rows. But if the pattern begins with "Cast on 339 stitches" it is another story. And so it is with the Icelandic Lace Shawl from Knitting Daily. It is a beautiful shawl and promises to be nice and cozy in the Jaggerspun Main Line that Sarah's Yarn kindly put up into kits for the Icelandic Lace Shawl KAL. This yarn is fingering weight, and since I am also working on the Bee Fields Shawl in very fine merino at the same time, this one seems like a fast and easy knit.

Maybe that's the problem: since it isn't too complicated, maybe I don't give it the attention it deserves. On Thursday night, I was knitting while watching the Channel 13 tribute to Luciano Pavarotti – a replay of a wonderful production of l'Elisir d'Amore from the early 1980's. I didn't think it would be a problem knitting this shawl while keeping an eye on the subtitles of the opera, though I knew that it would be out of the question with Bee Fields. Unfortunately I overestimated my multitasking capabilities, and after doing one the the last gray-beige section realized that the whole row was one stitch off in the second row, throwing the whole lace pattern out of whack. So, stitch by stitch, I worked my way back to were the first error was made. What a tedious process! When I finally got to reknit these rows, it because clear that it takes much less time to knit than to tink the exact same stitches.

Meanwhile, work proceeds slowly on the Bee Fields Shawl by Anne Hanson. What a gorgeous design! What a difficult thing to knit! The first sign of trouble was the instruction to p2tog tbl (purl two together through the back loops). I could never have figured out how to engage in this particular maneuvre without Anne's explicit explanation, and I still feel like I am doing a backbend when I do it, but it seems to be right, because the Bee Swarm section does (with a little imagination) look like a swarm of bees.

If I thought that was bad, the third section asked for a knitting move that I couldn't imagine doing until I had the needles in my hand. It involves a series of multiple yarnovers and dropping of yarnovers and picking up of multiple rows of dropped yarnovers... It is almost like magic how it all works out to look sort of like bees after the 6-row repeat is completed. (See the "bees" just below the needles in the above photo.) The yarn, from Wooly Wonka fibers, is absolutely scrumptious, and the shading of the green and yellow is even more subtle and interesting than it looks in the skein.

I am knitting this shawl (gasp!) without lifelines. I usually put in lifelines at least between sections, on a row that is plain K or plain P... but there are no rows that simple in this pattern. So I spend a lot of time holding my breath while knitting. Does that count as multitasking?

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!

Trouble Visualizing

Now that Clue 6 of Mystery Stole 6 is complete, I am really having trouble visualizing it, perhaps even more so than before. The "wing" (the section on the left in the photo) indeed looks like a feathered object, but how it is going to fit together once the final section is added is a Major Mystery. And how the finished garment is going to be worn is an even greater Mystery! But onward we knit, all 6,000 of us, or at least some substantial percentage of that number that hasn't given up (or is waiting to see photos of the Early Birds' finished objects).

While in between clues, R's gray-and-white socks received Finished Object status. Here they are, modeled by the recipient:

They are Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes & Heels socks, knit together on two circular needles. This poor pair of socks was a long time in the knitting. They kept getting lost (misplaced? stored carefully in a clever location?) and spent 3 days keeping me sane during a surprise hospital visit in May. The yarn is scrumptious Lisa Souza hand-dyed sock yarn, knit on #1 needles. This was my third pair of CT&H socks, so they should have been easy, but maybe I just had too many bad associations with where I had worked on them, so it took a while to get around to finishing them. And then finally came the bind-off, as always too tight. Now that they are finally done, they are a perfect fit, and R is very pleased with his first pair of hand-knit socks.

As for that bind-off, the first time I just tried binding off with a larger (#4) needle. That didn't do it though -- he couldn't even get it over his instep. Next I tried K2 tog, return to left needle and repeat (there may be a name for this bind-off but I don't know what it is), but that was also too tight. Finally I discovered Peggy's Stretchy Bind-off, and that did the trick. For K2,P2 ribbing this involves K2, M1, P2, M1, etc. across the row before the bind-off, and then doing a regular bind-off but slipping the M1's instead of knitting them. The M1's are created by creating a half-hitch loop, so you are essentially adding extra yarn to the edge before the actual bind-off. I may try this technique on lace that is going to be heavily blocked, since tight bind-offs can be a problem there too.

After all that gray I was feeling color-deprived so I cast on for another pair of socks in blue and green. Again based on CT&H for the basic pattern, these have the garter rib on the top and the cuff from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. They are really zipping along quickly, but I had reached the point where it is time to start the heel turn when we were about to head off the the wilds of New York City and I needed something simple for knitting on the train, so I started another pair:

Never having used self-striping yarn before, I thought it would be a good idea to start both socks at the same place in the yarn repeat. But look what happened... they aren't the same. It looks like one ball was wound in the opposite direction from the other. NOT that anybody would notice once they are on the feet, but it is interesting... I also decided, several inches along, that the garter rib didn't look good in this yarn, so they were frogged back to the top of the toe and started again in plain stockinette.

For somebody who always thought that knitting socks was a waste of time (who can see them, anyway?) I seem to be becoming addicted. It's nice wearing non-black socks that look interesting and actually fit properly!

While we wait...

While we were waiting for the next clue of MS3, I finished the Merging Colors Arioso Scarf by Candace Eisner Strick. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do it justice. Knit in lovely fine merino wool with three strands at a time, the colors are changed one strand at a time, with the result that the color changes are very gradual. I actually eliminated the last color, because the scarf was already long enough. The pattern is easy to knit, though there were several errors in the instructions, but once I figured out how to fix the errors it was a good in-the-car or knit-in-public project. (I must confess that I was extremely irritated to find errors in a pattern purchased as part of a kit. If errors are reported, it wouldn't be difficult or expensive to send retailers an addendum to include with the kits.) Only three rows of each 30-row repeat require close attention, and the rest is easy. Much though I dread the coming (too soon) cold weather, I am looking forward to wearing this scarf.

This morning we got Clue 5 for MS3. Though I had needles poised and ready when it finally came out at 7:30 AM, I gasped when I read through the instructions. Melanie has done something very unusual and mysterious this time with the design. The theme has been revealed to be Swan Lake, and the next part of the stole is to be shaped like a wing. All my brain could say was "Does not compute." There is always the option of repeating the first half and grafting the two sides together to make a symmetrical shawl, which certainly be some participants' choice, but the intended design may be wonderful, as Melanie's designs have been in the past. In response to the pleading of several bewildered KAL members, Melanie posted a schematic of the complete stole, which cleared the fog somewhat, so I am ready to plunge ahead, but anxiously awaiting the early photos of the fast knitters in the KAL group!

A case of startitis

Startitis is defined, more or less, as a condition wherein one achieves a sense of euphoria by beginning a new project. The longer the condition persists, the more projects metamorphose into UFO's (UnFinished Objects), which can languish indefinitely. There is no known cure.

I have been suffering from this ailment for a while, but this was an especially bad week. I have been working diligently on Mystery Stole 3, but Melanie took off a week in honor of the release of the Harry Potter book, so I finished Clue 4 a week early. I could use that time to finish the Endless Edging of the Garden Shawl, R's nearly-finished socks (which I keep misplacing), the Hanne Falkenberg jacket that has been about 85% finished for two years, the alpaca shawl I started in the spring (but is too fuzzy to work on in the summer)... I actually sank so low as to order a kit for the lovely Bee Fields Shawl – in spite of my long "To Do" list and rapidly increasing stash.


The photo on the left shows MS3 completed through Clue 4. The one on the right shows more detail, and it is the first photo in which the beads are visible. The evolving design is beautiful, and I am enjoying the Kit-along immensely, in spite of the huge volume of email it has generated.

The other consequence of having to wait a week for the next clue is an increase on reading time. Inspired by Roberta's recommendation, I decided to eliminate one of the many lacunae in my literary education and read Beowulf. This particular edition, translated by Seamus Heaney, is extremely readable. In fact, I am finding it hard to put down. One of the most fascinating things about it is that the original Old English text is printed alongside the translation, and the occasional glimpse at the original shows very little correlation to modern English. Languages, we are told, change all the time, and a thousand years is a long time, but I am still astonished that there is almost nothing in the Anglo-Saxon text that is recognizable.

Of Singing and Knitting

Last week we went to the 18th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival. In all those years I have missed only two, and every year it is surprising how fabulous it is. It is four solid days of singing, going to workshops, listening to performances, and eating worse-than-mediocre food (but then we keep reminding ourselves that "it isn't about the food"). Workshops and performances covered 500 years of Jewish choral music in every conceivable style, from Italian Renaissance to "hot-off-the-presses" American and Canadian. This year's honoree was Theodore Bikel, storyteller, actor, activist, and folk singer par excellence. He spoke, he sang, and he charmed all 500+ attendees, whose only regret was that his time on stage was limited to one afternoon session and an evening performance.

One thing that was different this year was amount of knitting going on during the brief "down" periods between sessions, or while waiting for something to begin. Waiting for the first "community sing" session to begin, I was knitting the cuffs of the almost-finished socks and the person on my left said "phooey, I should have brought my knitting too... I left it in the room!" Then somebody sat down on my right and started knitting on a hat. At almost every session I spotted somebody nearby knitting something, and many were people I had known for years without knowing they were knitters. Question to ponder: Why is it that this was the year we all brought along our knitting for the first time?

Not surprisingly, this wasn't the time or the place for knitting lace, but I couldn't bear to get behind on Mystery Stole 3 – especially since my decision to redo Clue 1 with a double strand (on the night before Clue 2 was released) meant that I was already behind. (Yeah, yeah, I know it isn't a competition.) So lace-knitting time was restricted to 5:30-7:00 every morning. Clue 2 was finished within an hour of the release of Clue 3 on Friday morning!

The decision to restart was a good one. I am much happier with the look and feel of the doubled yarn, and the 6/0 silver beads are more visible than the 8/0 beads on the single-stranded version. (Trust me on this, despite their invisibility in the photo.) The design is starting to take shape and is looking really beautiful.

Before going away I finished the Alix's Shawl from the Interlacements merino sock yarn that had a previous incarnation as the too-pink-for-a-boy baby sweater. It knit up very fast, and like Myrna Stahman's other patterns, it is nicely shaped to fit easily over the shoulders without slipping off. The 500-yard skein was just enough for a smallish (54" x 28") shawl which will be perfect for a birthday gift for my mother, who often wears these colors and frequently suffers from the cold in over-air-conditioned Florida. If I make this pattern again I will make a few more pattern repeats to make it larger.

Second Thoughts

This morning I finished Clue 1 of Mystery Stole 3. I liked the way the swatch knit up on #4 needles, but I am wondering if the fabric isn't a bit too loose now that the first 99 rows of the actual pattern are finished. Since lace always looks really crummy before it is blocked, it is hard to tell for sure. There is time for a do-over before Clue 2 is released next Friday, but do I really want to do that??

On another front, the beginning of MS3 coincided with the end of Icarus. I will always think of this as my "Florence shawl," since most of it was knit during the far-too-many hours in airports and on airplanes on the way to and from Florence last month. This was a wonderful project for traveling, because the yarn squishes up to almost nothing and can be tucked away into a corner of a purse, and the pattern for most of the shawl is simple enough to memorize. (I have to confess that the more complicated charts were done at home after the trip and could never have been done on an airplane.)

Pattern: Icarus Shawl by Miriam Felton, Interweave Knits, Summer 2006
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr - Aegean blue, just under 100g
Needles: Addi Turbo US #5
Size: 80" across the top; 37" top to bottom

I finally got my invitation to Ravelry this week. What a fabulous site! I have started entering a few projects in my notebook, but mostly I have been browsing. It was nice to see how other people's Icarus shawls and MS3 beginnings turned out in other yarns and colors, and the site is set up in such a way as to make that easy to do. I wish Jessica and Casey much luck with this endeavor.

Ready, Set, Go...

Today the first clue for Mystery Stole 3 was released. I was ready... yarn purchased, swatches knit, beads ordered, tools lined up.


New tools for this project include new Addi Lace Needles, a crochet hook with such a tiny hook that it is practically invisible, and highlighter tape.

The Addi lace needles have lovely sharp points, but they are not so slippery that the silk yarn slides off promiscuously. So far, they seem perfect for this project.

The #14 crochet hook looks like something you might find on the dentist's tray. The hook is so tiny that it is nearly impossible to see with the naked eye. It has to be that small to fit the holes in the beads. Fortunately, it is possible to do this by feel rather than by sight!

The other new item, which I had read about but could never find locally, is Highlighter Tape. It is wonderful for lace charts – just put a strip of tape above the line you are knitting, and move it up as you knit. It is far superior to my previous solutions: Post-It notes, strips of paper held with a paper clip, and even magnetic strips on an old metal document holder. The tape comes in several colors, and it is easy to move when you want to move it, but it sticks well when you don't want it to move. I had looked for it locally but never found it, and I finally ordered it online. Highly recommended!!

The beads are beautiful, but they are tiny (size 8/0), silver-lined clear glass. I haven't figured out how to handle them without dumping them all over the floor... it happened once, though fortunately I had put a few of them in a little plastic medicine cup, so I didn't lose too many. Maybe some kind of little mat would work better than grabbing them from the cup with the hook – this is my first experience with beads, and some experimentation may be in order.

I did swatch for this project, but I knit the swatches before the beads arrived. I chose these beads to create a subtle effect against the silver-gray silk, but I am now wondering if the effect is too subtle. (They don't show up well in the photo, but they don't show up well in real life either!) I also have some larger (6/0) beads that I ordered by mistake, and I am considering using those in the center section of the stole. More experimentation in order...

This stole, like Mystery Stole 2, promises to be a challenging project but extremely engaging. It is compelling to knit "just one more row" to see how the design is evolving, even when there are other things to be done.

The first few rows did not get off to a good start. I was having a lot of trouble maneuvering the two ends of the needle, the yarn, the crochet hook, and the bead without dropping any of them. O to be an octopus! It is getting easier, but another hand or two would still be helpful.

Thanks, Melanie, for the opportunity to be part of this community of over 3000 knitters from all over the world working on a project that will be interesting to knit and will result in learning new techniques... and will, undoubtedly, be beautiful when finished.

Shopping in Florence

Anyone who knows me knows that shopping ranks on my list of enjoyable activities down around cleaning and ironing. But occasionally shopping (or, more accurately, browsing) can actually be enjoyable – especially in a foreign country, when you don't actually have to buy anything.

As a knitter, I sought out the two yarn stores in Florence. One of them, Campolmi Roberto Filati (not far from the Duomo), is actually a manufacturer, with a large array of colors in several different fibers, mainly cottons, acrylics, and some wool, though the wool didn't feel especially soft. I may have been overtired and overheated by the time I got there, so I didn't find anything especially compelling, but it looked like there were some real bargains, and I would definitely check it out more carefully on another visit.

On the other hand, one of the highlights of my week was the visit to Beatrice Galli's shop in the Oltrarno area, right on the "other" side of the Ponte Vecchio. The charming Beatrice has run her shop for 40 years, and despite her claims of not speaking English, she has customers from all over the world. I got there just as she opened in the morning and was the only customer, and she patiently endured my primitive Italian for over half an hour as I looked, fondled, and lusted after her gorgeous skeins in wool, silk, and blends. I didn't buy anything, but I promised to return in October with some knitting friends and a clear idea of patterns and quantities – and a spare suitcase.

On another morning, I went to the Mercato Centrale, the large market near San Lorenzo, which is truly a feast for the eyes. This 19th century building houses a huge array of butcher shops, cheese shops, and stalls selling prepared foods, dried mushrooms, pasta, wine, and olive oil. The upper floor has stall after stall of fresh produce, with the aroma of basil wafting throughout. (Click on the picture for a brief slideshow.) It was hard not to be seduced by the beauty of the various displays and to walk out empty-handed. Of course, I didn't. After tasting several varieties of olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar, I bought a bottle of each... but I did manage to leave behind the fresh black truffles at €25 each. And then the cheese – after tasting several samples of parmegian reggiano I bought a large wedge that weighed in at over 2 kilos. When the woman behind the counter asked which I wanted, I said "non troppo grande, non troppo piccolo," but when she weighed them I kept thinking that bigger would be better, since it keeps well, and I would be sorry later if we used it up too quickly.

Even the little markets on quiet side streets provided pleasant surprises. A close look at the purple flowers reveals that they are artichokes! Inside the little shop we succumbed to a basket of tiny fraises des bois, the intensely flavored wild strawberries that are almost impossible to find at home.

And then there were all the jewelry shops on and near the Ponte Vecchio. My favorite time there was in the morning, as the shops were just opening. Other times it was so crowded that there was no temptation to linger!

Walking around Florence is a treat. The markets, the amazing artwork, the huge centuries-old palazzos, the nice little shops in unexpected places on side streets... You can even see art in the making – sidewalk artists working hard to create copies of masterpieces for the pennies people throw into a basket as a donation. This artist was working all day. When we walked by in the morning, he had just finished the head, and in the evening he was still working on the almost finished picture – the same Leonardo da Vinci that was on the wall in our hotel room.

A week (almost) in Florence

It was really the Trip from Hell. A late departure from Newark, missed connections, cancelled flights, lost luggage. After 26 hours (and an unexpected 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Milan to Florence), we finally arrived at the hotel. I kept asking myself why I thought it was a good idea to accompany R on this trip. Art and history only get you so far!!!

After the nightmare of the trip, the taxi dropped us off on a dark little street close to the Duomo. There was a scary moment when we thought the hotel didn't really exist, but we found the buzzer and someone did open the huge door to let us in. Then we saw it... a little sign that said "Hotel Centrale on the second floor." Can you imagine anything I would like seeing LESS than a huge flight of stairs at that point? Not only stairs, but Florentine stairs. This is a former palazzo, and each flight of stairs is about a mile up. (And in Europe "second floor" means two flights up from the ground level.) Of course we had no suitcases to carry, so it could have been worse! I almost expected the hotel to say "You were so late that we cancelled your reservation" – but for once everything was in order, and we were shown to our room, which was simple but pretty and spotless, with a copy of a Leonardo da Vinci painting on the wall. By the way, I would recommend this hotel highly.

Despite the crowds (June already being peak tourist season), despite the heat, and despite the horrible time we had getting there, Florence is still a wonderful city. It is small enough that you can walk everywhere, though the cobblestone streets can be hard on the ankles. R was busy with the conference every day, and my job was to play tourist. It wasn't hard to do – it was just hard to narrow down the choices!

The conference seems to have been a big success for the participants, quite a few of whom R has known for decades, and some of whom (along with their wives) I met many, many years ago. One day I spent wandering around the city with three of the wives, one from Argentina who has lived in Italy for many years, one from Belgium who has lived in Switzerland with her Scottish husband for many years, and one Belgian. The common denominator, of course, was English, and all of them speak it fluently, so I felt linguistically inferior but enjoyed the fact that they could all communicate with me anyway. I tried to rejuvenate my somewhat pathetic Italian, and it was really a pleasure to hear the music of the language all around me, even when I can't understand what people are saying.

My obligatory visit to the Uffizi was, as expected, delightful. With a reservation I was able to walk right in at the appointed time and stroll leisurely through, though I was told that without a reservation there would be a 3-4 hour wait to get in. Unfortunately, the museum (like Florence in general) suffers from far too many tourists per square meter. There were some rooms where it was impossible to see the artwork, though patience paid off – usually after a wait of a few minutes the crowd would disperse and I could catch a glimpse before the next surge.

One night there was a lovely banquet at a restaurant in one of Florence's many, many converted palazzi, and the food was wonderful. The guest of honor, whose 65th birthday was the excuse for holding this conference, seemed truly touched by the very nice (and brief, and in one case extremely witty) speeches made about him. Another night, also as part of the conference, there was a concert of piano music for 4 hands. We met two professors from Florence for dinner first ("American style," a.k.a. unfashionably early) at a little out-of-the-way trattoria with wonderful authentic Florentine food. A day of fabulous art, food, and music... what could be better?

Our last three nights we had dinner in three different restaurants. Twice we went with Italians to little trattorias we would never have discovered on our own, and the food was excellent at both. The other night we went back to Acqua al Due and it was just as wonderful as we had remembered. We had "assaggio di primi" -- a tasting of 5 different kinds of pasta, and then shared bistecca fiorentina al aceto balsamico, a steak with balsamic vinegar. We then shared an "assaggio di dolci" -- tasting of 5 different desserts -- which we would have skipped except that the couple with us was an evil influence!

R was busy at the conference every day except Sunday, when we did a lot of walking and visited both the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (see the amazing choir loft by Della Robbia here) and the church of Santa Maria Novella, which has some phenomenal artwork by many of the Big Names in Italian Renaissance art like Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Filippino Lippi, Ghirlandaio, etc. Our favorite is the Lippi fresco of St. Phillip driving the dragon from a Roman temple. It is a stinky dragon, and you can see people holding their noses, and the king's son actually faints from the smell. You can see it here. The decision of what to do that day was made easier by the fact that most museums are closed on Sundays, and the churches are open to tourists only in the afternoons. In the late afternoon we walked over to the Piazza della Signoria to take a last look at the wonderful statues out in the open, including a copy of Michelangelo's David and my favorite, Giambologna's amazing Rape of the Sabine Women. Nearby is a Cellini bronze of Perseus holding the head of Medusa plus a variety of other really gory statues.

All in all, it was an interesting -- though far too short -- visit. The conference attendees all seemed to agree that it was an exceptionally good conference, and the spouses had no problem keeping ourselves entertained. It may be the City of Aching Ankles, but it is also a city that is imbued with the history of art, the history of science, and fabulous food. I can't wait to go back. (But maybe on a different airline next time. After all the trouble they gave us on the way to Italy, Continental/Alitalia also managed to lose one suitcase and damage another one on the way home.)

Itty Bitty Raglan Cardigan

After all the discussion about whether boy babies could possibly wear a multicolor sweater with some shocking pink in it (see previous entry), I decided that it would be better to use the yarn in question for some other project and make the Baby in Question something completely different. Plan B was a very cute pullover with a big question mark in front, but I wasn't happy with the way it was knitting up in the reddish-orange I had chosen (thinking "cardinal" meant red) and black. Fortunately, I did the front first, so frogging it wasn't particularly painful. So on to Plan C, a generic raglan cardigan, with black uneven stripes and edging to add a little interest. Voilà:

Pattern: Baby Cardigan by Joy Jannotti, Size 12 mo.
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, 4 balls (200g)
Needles: Denise #5US
Revisions: Added unequal stripes generated by Random Stripes Generator and contrast edging

Despite all the false starts, it is very nice, and I liked the feel of the yarn. I have an extra ball of the orange and the black, so I will have to buy more to have enough for another baby sweater, but it should age well in the stash for the time being. The yarn has a slightly nubby feel to it, which makes it a little more interesting than plain cotton – definitely something I would use again. And now I have a color card, so there shouldn't be any color surprises when I order more!

The day after finishing the baby sweater, I cast on new socks for DH. (It isn't as if I didn't have several other projects going at the same time, but nothing that was simple enough or small enough to carry around in my purse.) This is my third attempt at Crazy Toes and Heels socks:

No, this isn't what it looks like... it is the toes of two socks knit simultaneously on two circular needles, according to the excellent manual by Mary Ann Beattie, aka "Queen Kahuna." Each previous time I had trouble getting started, but once I got going, they weren't at all difficult. This time I expected no trouble at all, given that it was the third time, but I still had to frog and restart several times. I'm still not sure why the tippy toes look a little strange. Maybe it will take 4 or 5 pairs before getting it right. At least, doing it this way, they both come out exactly the same!

The endless edging on the Garden Shawl continues... Why am I not comforted by the fact that I passed the half-way mark???

Seeing pink

First, a disclaimer: I hate pink and I have always hated pink. Even as a child, I wouldn't have been caught dead wearing pink. It's okay in a rose or a tulip, but not on me. And, having had two sons, it was never an issue in terms of clothing in this household.

I recently encountered a skein of beautiful, soft merino sock yarn from Interlacements that someone had given me. It has a variety of intense colors, including dark blue, green, purple, orange, brown, and.... shocking pink. (Okay, the pink was there, but it looks nice as an accent among other colors.) It seemed too pretty to waste on socks and the 500-yard skein enough to make a baby sweater. I found a pattern for a V-neck pullover that seemed perfect, and the knitting began. And then it happened – as the sweater got bigger, the pink began to take over. I took an informal survey and asked 7 women if they would put this sweater on a boy, and 5 said "yes, it's beautiful;" one said "no way!"; and one said that her daughter would put it on a boy but her daughter-in-law wouldn't. So, given that the Baby in Question lives 7,000 miles away, and his mother's taste is really an unknown, and the yarn is too expensive to be stuck in a drawer and never worn, it is, sadly, on its way to the frog pond.

Plan B is the Quiz pullover from Mission Falls 1824 cotton. But instead of black and white, I decided to do it in red and black. Ordering yarn over the internet is always dangerous, and I should have learned my lesson a long time ago, but since there is no LYS near by, it is pretty hard to avoid it. The color I ordered was called "cardinal," and it looked red on my monitor, but the yarn that appeared looks more like a coral than a true red. Okay, coral is sort of orange, and that should be okay for a boy. So I started knitting. And something very funny happened. The "cardinal" started getting pinker and pinker. So now it isn't clear what to do. Maybe the lesson is to stick to Boring Blue for boys.

Second Heartbeat

No, this is not a reference to twins. It is my second Heartbeat Sweater. I enjoyed knitting the first one so much that I immediately started a second. The first one was a solid green, and I thought it would be interesting to do it in a variegated yarn as shown in the pattern photo.

The yarn was a real bargain from Smiley's Yarns for $1.50 per 50g skein. There was a lot of waste because of the scant yardage per skein (80 yds), and a lot of ends to weave in (ugh). It took 13 skeins, but the total weight of the finished sweater is only 550 g, which sounds like it should have been 11 skeins. And it is heavy – 550 g is nearly 1.25 pounds – I can only imagine how much it weighs wet! But it has a very nice feel and an interesting texture.

I do like the way the variations in the yarn emphasize the truncated diamond shape of the pattern.

Pattern: Heartbeat Sweater by Jill Vosburg, Just One More Row
Yarn: Filatura Lanarota Circus (85% cotton, 15% Acrylic)
Needles: Denise Size 5
Gauge: ~ 4 sts/inch
Yardage: approx. 1000 yds for 48" size
Modifications: unintentional slight contrast on sleeve edges, since I grabbed the wrong skein of yarn on the first sleeve and it didn't look bad, so I used the same skein for the second sleeve instead of frogging. It became a "design element." I thought about using the same yarn on the neck edging but chickened out.

Having knit this sweater twice, I am still mystified by the geometry. It is an ingenious design, and somehow it all works out to be the right shape for a sweater, thought there were times when I had my doubts.

And, speaking of doubts, here is the Garden Shawl from Fiddlesticks in its "amorphous blob" state. This is a scary time in the life of a lace knitter, when a huge amount of time has been invested and it isn't at all clear that the object of all this effort will look like anything but a lump when it is finished. And it isn't clear that it will ever be finished because the edging (knit perpendicular to the edge of the shawl) goes on and on and on...

Yesterday I had an odd Knitting in Public experience. On a whim I had decided to go to the Johnson & Johnson annual shareholders' meeting, something I had never done before. Since I had been warned to get there early to be sure to get a seat in the main ballroom and not have to listen to sound piped into one of several overflow rooms, I had stuck a pair of socks-in-progress in my pocketbook. I was happily knitting when an elderly gentleman sat down next to me and asked if he could put in an order for a pair. He turned out to be a retired J&J engineer who had worked in the division that made tampons (in the days when things were actually manufactured in NJ). Occasionally they had to reject spools of the extremely strong reinforced cotton string they used, and employees could take them home, so he gave some to his mother to use around the house. A few years later she showed him a tablecloth she had crocheted... from the rejected tampon string! He says he still has the tablecloth and chuckles whenever he looks at it.

Punishment and Reward

I must have committed some terrible knitting sin in the past to have earned the ordeal of knitting the Cotton Chenille Baby Sweater. In fact, it was so awful to knit with this yarn (Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille) that it took months to finish. Because of the texture of the yarn (thick and unstretchy) and the fact that I had to use size US #2 needles to get a decent fabric (despite the fact that the pattern called for #6 needles with this exact yarn), my hands would ache after knitting just a few rows, and it was hard to work up the energy to pick it up again. I finally realized that if I didn't finish it soon, the Baby in Question will have outgrown it, if she hasn't already! So here it is, not exactly as it was supposed to be, but at least finished:


It was much too hard to do the bobbles in the multicolored trim with the #2 needles, so I just did plain garter stitch. I hope the baby and (more important) her mother like it.

Note: if you are wondering why I used #2 needles, check out my blog entry on swatching for this sweater.

Immediately after finishing this sweater I cast on for a sweater for the soon-to-be new baby in the family. The Cascade Pima Tencel I used for this sweater was a total delight. My reward for suffering through the "chenille ordeal"??? It took only days to finish the sweater (based loosely on a pattern in The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits) and the hat (generic baby hat, no known pattern):

The hat was an afterthought, since there was a little of each ball of yarn left and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. The color combination is admittedly a little weird for a newborn, so I hope my daughter-in-law likes it. At least it was fun to knit!

Heartbeat Sweater

With a little trepidation I started a Knit-along for the Heartbeat Sweater from Just One More Row. One knitter mentioned a problem with the neckline being too wide and deep, and after my experience with the Sprinkle Lace Cardigan I wasn't anxious to deal with that again! But the pattern looked like it was easily adjustable, it seemed like a quick and easy knit (compared to the barely visible yarn for my current lace project), and there was even yarn in my stash that seemed suitable, so why not?



Pattern: Heartbeat Sweater by Jill Vosburg, Just One More Row
Yarn: Filatura Lanarota Luxor D.K. (50% cotton, 50% Acrylic)
Needles: Denise Size 6
Gauge: 5 sts/inch
Yardage: approx. 1200 yds for 48" size

The construction of this sweater is very unusual. It begins at the center neckline and is knit outwards, with vertical side panels in garter stitch, and sleeves knit onto the side panels. The pattern is very well written, with a large number of diagrams – and thank goodness for those, because I had the whole front nearly finished before I could figure out how this bizarre shape was going to turn into a sweater! (I find that a certain amount of faith is sometimes necessary in knitting.)

Because of the design of the sweater, there are no exact measurements in the pattern – you have to take measurements (Jill recommends measuring a garment that fits you well), and from time to time there are reassuring comments like "Don't worry, the side panels will allow you to adjust the fit exactly to your size." It is possible to try it on as you go, so adjustments can be made at various points without major surgery (for yourself or the sweater).

Because I was concerned about the neckline, which is sometimes a problem with patterns written for smaller sizes and calculated proportionally for larger sizes, I followed the suggestion of one knitter in the Knit-along (I'm sorry, I don't remember who it was) and added a few extra increases on each side at the top, though it might not have been necessary.

The only other modification I made was to make the sweater a little longer than shown in the picture, so my yardage was more than the estimate for that size, even though the gauge was the same.

The Denise needles were perfect for this project, since at several different times you are instructed to slip stitches onto a holder or smooth string. With the Denise needles and several extra cables it is possible just to detach the needle tips, screw on a cap, and leave the stitches on a cable until you are ready to continue with that section. Then unscrew the cap, put the needle tip back on, and knit away.

Finishing is easy, since you use a 3-needle bind-off to join the sides. The one thing I found annoying was a seemingly endless array of ends to weave in. The truth is that I am spoiled – I have done a lot of knitting recently with yarn on cones (so there is no need to join yarn from separate skeins), and even when knitting with smaller skeins I generally use animal fibers that I can join with a spit-splice, and hence no ends. Since this yarn was a cotton blend in 130-yd. balls, there were lots of ends, and that is always my least favorite part of any project (aside from sewing pieces together).

I enjoyed knitting this sweater, I like the style, and I like the way it fits. So the only question in my mind is what yarn to use on the next one... maybe something variegated, like the one shown in the pattern photo.

Reluctant Sweater Set

The problem with the Sprinkle Lace Cardigan's low neckline has been solved, thanks to the generosity and ingenuity of several knitters on two different knitting group lists who offered suggestions after my last post. Suggestions ranged from varying degrees of major surgery to adding additional edging to the neckline or just wearing something else under it. Probably the most clever was to lace ribbon all the way around the neckline (instead of just as a tie, as suggested in the pattern) to gather and pull it up. Since that solution required the least effort, I decided to try that first... but I had already started a matching shell with the remaining cone of yarn. So I now have a beautiful sweater set:


CARDIGAN:
Pattern: Sprinkle Lace Cardigan by Natalie Wilson
Yarn: 100% cashmere DK from Colourmart - color China Blue - approx. 400 gm
Needles: Denise US #8 and #7
Modifications: Additional crocheted edging on neckline; eliminated waist shaping on body but knit bottom 4" on larger needles

SHELL:
Pattern: based on Quick & Easy Shell by Kate Winkler
Yarn: 100% cashmere DK (see above) - approx. 180 gm
Needles: Denise US #8 and #7
Modifications: Added Sprinkle Lace pattern to match the cardigan

Here is a somewhat blurry picture of it on a reluctant model (but the only one available):

Despite all the crises, I am delighted with the final product. The advantage for me, the wearer, is that I get to feel how lovely and soft it is; everyone else just gets to see it.

I have learned a few lessons from this experience. One is to try on the item as y0u go. I didn't do that because I had allowed for shrinkage, and as long as the gauge was still on track I thought it would be okay. But that didn't allow for errors in the pattern or errors in following the pattern. If I had even tried it on just before doing the 3-needle bind-off at the shoulders, it would have been easy to make adjustments before assembling the whole sweater.

AND... I learned how to crochet!

The good news and the bad news

The good news is that I have finished the lace sprinkle sweater. It is beautiful. The bad news is that I don't like the way it fits, and I'm not sure it's my fault.

As you can see from the photo, the neckline is too wide and too deep. After all, the purpose of a cashmere sweater is to keep you warm, not to show off one's assets! I don't know what went wrong – a comparison with the designer's photo (see previous blog entry) shows that the neck wasn't supposed to be low and sexy.

I already tried to compensate by increasing the edging around the neck. (Yes, I did figure out how to do a single crochet and half double crochet for the edging all the way around, and managed it quite nicely, if I do say so myself.)



The additional row of edging around the neck looks good, but it didn't solve the problem. It really needs a few more inches, so it's hard to imagine doing enough edging to fill in the gap. I'm open to suggestions!

The yarn, Colourmart cashmere DK weight, is fabulous. It was a pleasure to knit, and after the "tough love" treatment of washing in hot water and drying for several minutes in the dryer, it bloomed into something so soft that it is hard to be in the same room with it and not want to caress it. So it would really be a shame to let this sweater just hide away in a drawer, neglected.