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...
My very first knitting project was improvised – as were several of the follow-up projects. I referenced some patterns for those early ideas, but for the most part, I wanted to see what I could figure out with the skills I’d picked up. I knit from patterns somewhat more frequently now, but I will often add tweaks of my own, whether it’s just recopying the instructions in a format that’s more intuitive for me to read, or adjusting the construction of the finished item, or even lifting a lace or color motif from one item to place it in another finished object. That said, it’s hard to say whether or not I have a favorite pattern or designer. I own two patterns by Nim...
If you’ve been to our home in the past year or so, you’d know: we really love our yarn here. Em invested in a gigantic set of solid-pine cubbyhole shelving units for the yarn stash at the beginning of last year, and we keep the cubby baskets overflowing. We inherited a lot of yarn from our wonderful mother’s stash she kept for kindergarten crafts – even the older, sometimes a bit loveworn, harsher acrylic blends make awesome pattern-test yarn and an endless supply of provisional cast-ons, thumbhole-holding-stitches, and knitted kitty toys. We also have gotten a lot of yarn as gifts (me on Christmas was a sight to behold, arms overflowing with skeins and pattern books), and of course we keep our...
Happy new year, readers! It seems fitting to kick it off with the next question on my list: what’s your most challenging project? Measuring challenge in knitting isn’t always simple, and I thought about this for a long time. Since it’s a new year, though, I’m featuring a new project, one that will probably get a proper WIP Wednesday write-up of its own once it actually makes it onto the needles – a properly fitted, gorgeous emerald green sweater for my wife Kai. Look at that color! Silk fibers are known for holding dye with an unparalleled depth of color, and this yarn (Lang Yarns Silkmerino) is 38% silk. Kai has often struggled to find off-the-rack “fitted” garments in feminine styles...