Last night I did what every good knitter does in a time of stress: I cast on a new project. Not just any new project, but a particularly challenging project—in this case a lace shawl from a Japanese knitting book.
I am twenty-eight rows in and, while I don’t have the number of stitches on my needles that I should (at least I think I don’t; I could be misreading the numbers on the diagram), I do have a number of stitchs that is a multiple of the pattern repeat I’m coming up on, so I’m hoping things will be ok. I have found an excellent web site with some good information on knitting from Japanese books (Knitting Elegance), and I also have a student coming to my office hours later today who’s a native speaker of Japanese (he has no idea what he’s in for!), so I am hopeful I will be able to continue apace.
I’ve gone one step further in complicating this process—rather than using a lace or fingering weight yarn (I believe the pattern suggests a yarn with 200 meters per 40 grams) I am using some Fiesta Ballet in the Madrid colorway.
This yarn is a yummy, yummy blend of alpaca and tencel, so I am hoping for good results despite the odds.
Thank you for this link! A friend just brought be back a Japanese knitting book from Hong Kong. It’s all so gorgeous and I can get a certain amount from the charts but not quite enough. 😉 ‘Cause that’s what my knitting needed. A foreign language! LOL
There are an awful lot of “I believes” in this post!
😉
(You optimist, you!)
A friend of mine just knit the cover sweater from that very booklet. No, she does not read Japanese and had never done such a thing. She got a LOT of help from a group on Ravelry when she had questions (she did find that non-knitters who spoke/read Japanese were not of so much help). I can find the group name for you if you would like.
Me again: here’s the Rav group. Whether you wanted it or not. You don’t have to join, but go take a look.
http://www.ravelry.com/groups/japanese-knitting-and-crochet
Two of the stickied threads are a list of resources, and translations. I think you could potentially find it helpful. Even just to know it’s there if needed!
I have a lot of Japanese cross stitch books but of course, that’s pretty easy stuff to read.
Good luck with your Pi shawl. The yarn is terrific! Can’t wait to see your lovely shawl.