Doing the Things a Triangle Can

I was hoping to have one of those super spectacular finished shawl photos by now, but the first batch of full-shawl shots didn't turn out that well, and it's been dark and rainy since I realized I should take a new photo. So I'm going to make due with what I have, since I'm going to Boston and Orlando later this week and won't have time to fool around with it before then.

The photos above show some of the details--I think I like the shawl-over-dog-gate photo the best, because it looks very airy that way. The dog gate is actually a critical tool in this whole process--keeping the dachshunds off of the shawl while blocking would have been impossible without it!

Here's how the shawl looked (in bad lighting, taken at night), before soaking & blocking:

Barely looks like lace, no edge definition, basically looks terrible.

Here's how it looks after blocking:

Even in a not-super photo, it looks pretty good! I'm very pleased with the way it turned out, even if I'm not sure I can pull off the triangle shawl look. The top edge isn't really that crooked, I just didn't spend enough time arranging it. I was very glad to see that the scallops have held their shape--it's kind of amazing, really. The yarn is from Sundara Yarn, it's her sport merino. I used size 6 Addi Lace needles, the largest size they make. A larger size might have been a little more airy, which would have been nice.

I'm trying my hardest not to start another lace project, even though I have a couple of skeins of sport merino in my stash that would look great in lace. Time to refocus on one of the other three lace projects that are on the needles, maybe?

p.s. I reserve the right to continue to quote "Triangle Man" in the title of any future posts that involve triangle shaped things. I have no idea why this didn't occur to me sooner.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

The triangle shawl is about half dry, the light is uneven in the sewing room so I'm only showing a piece of it.

I've tried to be a little aggressive with the blocking, so that the stitch definition will still be good after I unpin it.
Now that it's on the wires (blocking wires from Knitpicks), it's easy to see that there are four stitch patterns. The first three are leafy (leaf, fir cone, a leaf from a Japanese stitch dictionary), and the last one is ripple. The first and last are from Evelyn Clark's book, and the other are patterns I wanted to try out and crammed into the chart. I was trying to go from a fairly closed leaf to more open patterns, and while I think it was a good theory, they kind of all seem to have the same amount of openness. The ripple at the bottom is the most open, and I think it makes a nice border.

Hopefully, it will be totally dry later today, although I may leave it pinned out until tomorrow regardless.

Rhonda--I'll definitely bring it to knit night once I'm back in town, provided that I don't lose it while I'm travelling!

Whew!

The lace triangle shawl is off the needles, and blocking. I soaked and pinned it this evening, and the flash photos don't look good so I'll try to get something better tomorrow. It was a close call--I skipped two rows of the edging, and here's what I had left:

My original plan, based on the yardage estimates in Knitting Lace Triangles, my original plan was to knit about 118 rows, but I think that the skeins must have had a little something extra in them, or it knit up closer to a fingering than a sport weight. At row 131, I had 42 grams of yarn left. After that, I knit 7 more pattern rows, and 4 rows of the edging, and the cast off. That's about 3 grams per row (if I count the cast off as one row), so taking out those two rows was probably a good idea, I think.

Decisions, Decisions . . .

Right now, I have eight "active" WIPs in my Ravelry notebook, eleven "hibernating" WIPs, and one WIP that I haven't added to Ravelry yet. This doesn't include the bunny, or the tissue-holders I've started cutting out for the holiday bazaar, either. Is it any wonder that I'm having trouble deciding what to work on this afternoon? This weekend I've worked on:

Item 1: My second Chevron Scarf, which has somehow grown to about 30 inches after stalling for much of the summer. It's been my main car project since finishing the Brother Socks, and I've knit probably 10 inches in the last two weeks. I thought that the colors were a little boring when I started this, but they are growing on me now. The scarf will look super with jeans!

Item 2: The Big Footed Bunny. I clipped some curves, ironed some seams, stuffed one foot, and selected buttons for the eyes. Then I couldn't find the embroidery floss, so I stopped working on it. No photos--it looks not much different than before.

Item 3: The leafy triangle shawl that I started last weekend. I was able to get over 100 rows from the first skein of yarn, which is much more than I expected. My original plan was to knit about 118 rows, based on 450 yards of yarn, but I think that I can get closer to 140 rows. I'm on the fourth pattern that I've incorporated, and I'm not sure if I'll need to find a fifth.

Item 4: A secret Christmas project. If you're on Ravelry, you can see it here--it's for someone who's not on (yet). Sorry, N____er, that means that it isn't for you!

Item 5: A new pair of socks, from a pattern in Cat Bordhi's new book. More about this once I make some actual progress.

It's hard to see a lot of progress when I'm skipping around so much, although the leafy triangle shawl and the chevron scarf are getting bigger. It's also hard to focus (and to type) when there's a dachshund snuggled up on the corner of the keyboard. Time to put the computer down, and get back to knitting . . . maybe each project needs a turn.

Love it or Leaf it

I've been home from my Knitting Lace Triangles workshop for about three hours, and I'm having trouble putting my project down. Evelyn's book provides the basic structure of a triangle shawls an four lace patterns that can be easily combined to make a customized shawl. In the class, we also had the option of incorporating other lace motifs and charting out the whole design. Charting is tricky, because the number of repeats may not work easily with the triangle shape--one of the patterns that I'm putting in does weird things at the edges, for instance, and I'm not quite sure how it will work. It's amazing how much easier it is to understand once it's drawn into a chart, and to see whether / how the motifs will work.

So far, I've used two lace motifs, one is the leaf from the book, and the other is a fir cone from Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns. Obviously, I'm using the green Sundara sport merino (Pebble over Jade) that I posted about earlier--look at the pretty, subtle color changes! Up close, under the photo lamp, they're much more visible. The color is very leafy, so I'm trying to move from closed leaf patterns to more open leaf-like patterns. The next pattern that will pop up is from an awesome Japanese stitch dictionary that Evelyn brought to class. This pattern is another leaf, but one that is open in the middle and framed with yarn overs--it's the one that doesn't quite fit, but I'm only going to use a couple of repeats so I think it will work out o.k. I've knit about 70 rows of the triangle, and I can't wait to see how it progresses!

I'm really glad that I took the class, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in Evelyn's designs, or learning to design a shawl using her formulas from the book or other stitch patterns. The motifs in the book are very versatile, and the examples of complete shawls are also great options. There's one in particular that I almost decided to do instead of charting my own, but I thought that I should take advantage of the chance to learn from the source.

The other great thing about the class was the wealth of local knitting knowledge shared by the students and by Evelyn. I now know where to get Zephyr locally (evidently by the ounce!), and where I should eventually be able to get some Kauni, and I saw a full set of the new Knitpicks wood needles before mine arrived on Saturday. Plus, people brought in beautiful handspun yarns and incredible lace projects that I have to add to my Ravelry queue tonight. Now if I could just stop typing and get back to the shawl . . .

Like School on the Weekend: No Class

I'll actually be in class ALL weekend! I'm taking a class with Evelyn A. Clark based on her Knitting Lace Triangles book. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am already knitting a big-ass lace triangle, but this class will be more about building a triangle pattern based on a menu of choices. I'm looking forward to learning more about construction methods, and how to fit different patterns together. I'm bringing along a few different yarns, because the pattern can be used for different weights of yarn and I'm not sure what to pick. The two yarns above are the front-runners--both are Sundara Yarn's Sport Merino. On the left is Pebble over Jade, and on the right is Navy over Marine. The Navy over Marine has more depth than the photo above shows, the Pebble over Jade reminds me of a complicated Rowan aran sweater that I knit for the better part of the 1990s. I've seen beautiful examples of this yarn being used for lace, my only concern is that I only have about 450 yards of each, which might only be enough for a pretty small triangle. But a 450 triangle is likely to go alot faster than a 1,000 yard triangle, right? There's nothing wrong with finishing a lace project, is there? I'm not sure I've ever finished one, except for a few narrow scarves, and a few baby cardigans, but I AM sure that starting a new project is the best idea I've ever had. It ALWAYS is!