So on top of the planned store-remodel and the furious preparations for our first festival booth in September, we have, of course, still been knitting store orders and custom commissions. I have the great pleasure of finally showing off my most ambitious commission yet – a nearly four-foot-diameter allover lace circle shawl, knitted and designed by yours truly. This shawl is knitted on US size 5 needles, and contains around 1000 yd of yarn. Hand-picked by the customer, the yarn is actually a fingering-weight hand-dyed sock blend in three different colorways, and is a blend of merino wool, domestic wool, silk, and nylon. I cast on this project at the end of March, with a general plan for the design (lace motifs selected, a mostly finalized...
That’s right, bumblebees and chickadees, I’ve worked out my first pattern design! (I should say, the first design that’s complete and I’m willing to let see the light of day… there’s a few failed monstrosities of pattern drafts stuffed into trash bins around here, and I wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t a giant lace shawl pattern in the works in the background.) These gloves are inspired by construction details from several different fingerless mitts, but the lace charts for the back of the hands are originally the property of Ana at knit-nana, repurposed from her inimitable Mirno shawl design with her gracious permission. (Thanks Ana!) My hand-copied draft chart, and an early prototype knit. The lace comes out quite differently at the...
A lot of the photography for this blog has taken place on the front steps of our apartment, partly because that space has good lighting and some good framing devices, but also because it’s a favorite knitting space for me in particular. Since the weather in this season is highly unreliable, though, and because I missed the conjoined activities of knitting while people-watching, I’ve been taking time a few mornings a week to bring my knitting to a coffee shop for a few hours. So far, it’s been excellent. Knitting in public does a number of good things, both personal and in general. Personally, I can get a boost in productivity and focus on nearly any project when I introduce occasional changes...
I said I’d be back to talk about my continuing lace adventures and here I am, with yet another complex lace shawl in my lap. I’ve talked before in multiple posts about how much I love lace, and it holds true; as I expand my knitting into a profession instead of just a hobby, it’s even more important to me to have one or three “selfish knitting” projects aside that I do just for my own pleasure… and the most pleasurable thing for me to knit, at least at this stage in my life, is shawl-sized sprawls of lace. Plushy comfort knitting is one thing (like the bit you can see on my hands) but delicate lace is its own...
So it’s not a Friday, but I couldn’t wait any longer: I needed to talk about my pride and joy, my graduation-to-next-level-lace-knitting, my biggest knitting triumph of the year so far. I finally, after one week shy of a year, finished the Duskwings shawl, just in time to gift it to my wife for our legal-wedding anniversary. This exceedingly mild spring is perfect for layering a worsted-weight shawl like this over light, cute tops that have been languishing in drawers all winter. I ended up using all but the tiniest leftover bit of the 630 yards of yarn I’d bought, and I literally knitted one of the tips I picked up just for this shawl nearly into pieces. I also had quite the adventure...
