Knitting Knews

That's what's been keeping me from blogging, the Evenstar shawl. I am done with Clue 5; there are only 2 more clues to go. At nearly 600 stitches per row, it takes about a half hour to do one row. Especially since I count each repeat and each motif inside each repeat. May be slow and may be a bit boring but it's kept me from major screw ups while knitting this shawl.

I would recommend being this compulsive to anyone embarking on a complex lace pattern. The sanity you save may be your own. The other bit of advice I have is to use a good, grippy rubber band (I'm using one from my hair stash) on the ends of the circular needles, to prevent loss of stitches while the project is away. The fancy doo-dads they sell I've heard have a tendency to jump off tiny lace needles at inopportune moments. From what I've read on the Ravelry boards, stitches on complex lace projects have a finite chance of migrating or wandering while the knitter is off doing non-knitterly things. The more complex the lace, the higher the chance that the stitches will wander off the needles according to the formulae:

where z* = complexity of pattern and tau* = patience of knitter to reknit the thing, D being number of stitches the knitter will have to pick up times the number of rows dropped to get back to where the knitter was. Easier to stick a rubber band on the ends.

Since I was in a picture-taking mood, and my boat-load of pins (for blocking Evenstar) came, I decided to take a better photo of the lovely budding lace pattern that is the main part of Swallowtail:

Such a gorgeous little lace pattern! Makes up for the drawbacks of the yarn. You can really see the intriguing Twilight color of the Jamieson's Shetland in the macro. Wonder if adding a bit of hair conditioner to the Eucalan will help it soften.

The Beaverslide Dry Goods yarn and the Miyuki 6/0 beads, came so I can make a pink Shetland Lace Triangles shawl for my little niece, as requested. Just like Mommy's.

While I was gone

Spring sprung around the EK household:




And (cue the trumpets) Carefree was finished at 9:14 pm last night, in time to wear during the next cold front this weekend:


Thoughts on the pattern: Fun to knit, though there were a few confusing spots. In the end, I followed my instincts. I also shortened the collar by a half-inch; I didn't want it coming up so high in the back; I'm glad I did so.

Thoughts on the yarn (Jaggerspun Zephyr 2/8): I love it. I wish it came in more weights (fingering, sport, worsted).

And here's Swallowtail. I confess, much as I like Jamieson's Shetland yarns, I'm not liking Spindrift so much, or maybe I'm not liking Spindrift so much for a shawl. Hope it softens when I soak it in Eucalan. The color (Twilight) is absolutely heavenly.


Evenstar wants a photo taken before I begin the next clue:


And last, some new yarn I've acquired. Both are Dream in Color Starry, Midnight Derby (left) and Good Luck Jade.


Tonight is devoted to knitting clue 4 of Evenstar. Off to do it!

Back from the West Coast

We're back. LA rocked and rolled during last week's magnitude 7.2 quake (courtesy of the Laguna Salada fault). You could surf in my brother's swimming pool, the waves were that high. But look at the view along my parents' walkway (above). And this is the sidewalk in front of my brother's house:

Hard to resist, eh? This was the first time in 30-odd years I found myself thinking about living again in California (lived there twice; moved from there twice). But when the earth trembles, I stop sleeping. And when I stop sleeping, I remind myself about all the reasons not to live in LA.
Thank you readers who sent wishes for my parents. I appreciate the good thoughts. My mother has age-related degeneration, and unfortunately will only get worse. My father, thank G-d, is doing better.

On the knitting front, my sister-in-law was enchanted with the Shetland Triangles shawl. My 5 year old niece now wants one, in pink (of course), with beads (naturally). Any excuse for me to buy more yarn (as if I need excuses, right?).
Carefree's parts are done; I need to put them all together and pick up/knit the neckline stitches and it is done. To keep myself sane during the flights, I bought some wooden circular needles and started another Evelyn Clark shawl out of some Jamieson's Shetland fingering weight (Spindrift) I had in stash. I have no idea who will get it. Too bad it's blue (official name of color is Twilight). Evenstar needs to have clues 4 and 5 knitted; today would have been a good day to get a move on except my house was looking very neglected. So I cleaned it: Three bathrooms. Polished silver. Waxed furniture with hard wax. My hands asked for a break after that. I'll take photos the next chance I get (I have about 150 photos from LA to upload, annotate, crop, and fiddle with first).

I'll leave you now with one more shot of LA: down the block from my parents' house.

Back in Play

So look what I dragged out from the back of the closet and began working on again. Yup, the AS Maidenhair shawl. I am now at the halfway mark (assuming I have enough Jamieson Soft Shetland to get to 11 full repeats of the big diamond motif;I have 6 full skeins left). The pattern is really easy and quite fun: I left out the bobbles to save yarn and because who wants to lean back against them anyway?

Rugged did not get ignored, see? Almost at the shoulder of the back. Today's plan is to finish the back of Rugged and start the front.

And I took some photos of the Lace Dream shawl dressed and modeled by Daughter #1, a bride-elect: She told me the shawl was heavy on her arms (!), whereupon I threw it up in the air to show her how it floated down. Her gown will be Duchesse satin, with a cathedral-length train, and her veil will be 2 layers of French net, hip-length. She thinks the shawl is heavy?

More Jamieson Shetland Loveliness

Hope you can see the cable pattern on this set I designed, appropriate for the month. The cable forms hearts up and down and across. Here's a closer look:


Cute, no? I used a somewhat different heart cable for the red hat I made for the Ships Project.

The hat fits very snugly around my ears and keeps them warm. Usually these types of hats ride up to my ear tips and I get earaches from the cold. The scarf is 4 feet long, meant to be doubled, and is almost too warm, though come Tuesday when we have temps below zero (real temps, without wind chill), I may say otherwise. Stay tuned.