What with Melissa finishing up her move to Santa Cruz and the wrap-up work on my summer session class, I haven’t been knitting much of late. But when I do get time to knit, I’ve been working on lace shawls. Why? (As if one ever needs to ask why with knitting.)
1. The perfect books.
I actually only have a copy of the first one, but I’ve also done some leafing through the second, courtesy of my friend Chris, and I can’t wait to have a copy that’s mine! all mine!
These books don’t just give you patterns, they elucidate the whole lace shawl business in clear, pick-up-your-sticks-and-knit language. The first includes circle, half-circle, square, and triangle shawls. the second focuses on square and triangle shawls. If you’ve ever leafed through a stitch dictionary, dreaming of turning some of the stitches into a floating, airy wrap, these are the books that will make that possible.
2. The perfect yarn.
That would be Cascade Handpaints Heritage Sock Yarn (scroll down to get to the handpaints). This yarn is delicious in every way: delicious to touch, delicious to look at, delicious to knit with. The colors have wonderful depth and change in different lighting. I’m working with 9872 right now, which looks grey at first, but then blossoms into wonderful blues and greens as the light strikes it from different angles.
The yardage is generous enough that I was able to knit a half-circle shawl, including a knit-on border, with just two skeins. This yarn has great stitch definition, even with the variegated colorways. More good news—it’s mostly superwash wool, but with none of that teflon-y hardness that some superwashes seem to have.
3. The perfect opportunity.
I’ll finish off my summer session work today and have been clever enough to block off three-and-a-half days in the next week just for writing up patterns. I’ve had shrugs and shawls and fingerless gloves and hats dancing about half-designed in my head for months now, and this coming week will be dedicated to cranking out patters so as work gears up with the start of the new school year and I become increasingly inept at knitter’s math, I can nonetheless be knitting up my own designs.
Well, good luck with all your lace incentives, S-H! Blimey, if I had those two books, I would be drooling too…
I’m actually trying to wean myself off lace atm, as I feel I ought to be knitting other things (eg cardies, jumpers, gloves, etc) because it makes my Ravelry ‘projects’ look a bit more balanced. Am I mad? Or being masochistic? Baaah, I love lace knitting so much…
xxx
ps certainly looking forward to seeing your new designs!
I was fortunate to buy this book ages ago. It’s a beautifully written book. Now I have time to knit things from it.