I have since then, however, finished more lovely knitted things, namely shawls: lace shawls ... and a lace shrug. Let’s look at that one first, shall we?
I have a friend who is older than I by about six years, which makes her nearing retirement age rather quickly; however, she has a super young attitude, a petite figure, funky dyed hair and a hip fashion sense. We are about the same size (I’m also quite petite) but, where I choose to wear jeans and T-shirts, she wears mini-skirts and form-fitting lacy tops. There is one area which she doesn’t generally expose, however: her upper arms. She feels that they look like old lady arms. I have seen her bare arms and I disagree (but then, perhaps I, too, have old lady arms and am in denial) and likes to wear something with sleeves on top of her summer dresses to hide them. I got the great idea to make her a shrug that she could wear in the hot weather, so I did my research and came up with Matrimonio Bolero, a free pattern easily found on the interwebs. Since I had so much of the natural crochet cotton left from the tablecloth, I used that, and went down a needle size. I also knit the sleeves in the round so I saved myself a couple of seams. The pattern calls for a crocheted edging and I do not crochet easily or happily. I’m afraid my attempt doesn’t look anything like the pattern page photo, but my friend won’t know the difference and it does what it’s meant to: give the edge a nice finished look.
Next (but finished earlier as I wore it to my niece’s wedding) is a test knit for my favourite New Zealand designer, Mary-Anne Mace. She combined cables and lace to tell a tale of corporate takeover, or the cables devouring the lace, and called the result The Lace Eater. At the last Toronto Knitters’ Frolic I had bought two skeins of Lino, a 65% silk-35% linen lace and they were just begging to be knit into her design. So I held them double to approximate fingering weight and it worked out quite well. Here she be:
This shawl is super comfortable in warm weather and I have been wearing it a lot.
Mary-Anne asked us (her fawning fans) how she could promote her shawl. We suggested she hold a KAL, which is underway as I type. I decided I had to make another and had the perfect yarn in my stash: Qiviut Queen Superwash Merino by Cottage Craft Angora (70% merino-10% qiviut-10% silk-10% cashmere). It was utterly divine to knit with and I even prolonged the process by experimenting with the pattern and then ripping out my experiments and going back to the charts. I do believe Mary-Anne has made a perfect shawl here. It doesn’t require any beads or alternate decorations to be better.
I went down a needle size and I’m very glad I did, as it stretched quite a bit in the blocking. This is going to be my “Rhinebeck sweater”.
I also completed one other shawl, another test knit, Mûrier Noir by Carol Sherman. I was digging through my stash for something else when I came across a skein of 100% suri alpaca I had bought quite some time ago from a local woman who used to raise the animals. This wasn’t from her stock, but I couldn’t resist it. It has a buttery feel to it and is exceedingly fine. The end product is very light but warm and squishy. The pattern itself consisted of nine repeats of a boring lace design (boring ≠ unattractive, let it be noted) with a central panel, edged by an open-work leaf pattern. The hard part was making sure not to drop any stitches in the edging. I had to rip back to the end of the main body and put in a lifeline (if you knit this, make sure to put in a lifeline), which I ended up needing at least once more before it was done. There are YOs and slanted decreases on both RS and WS, and if you should happen to let one of those decreases fall off the needle, all the ones underneath it will unravel and you will be left with a horrible mess. But the finished product is absolutely lovely.
I have a friend whose son is getting married next year and I am sending this to her to wear on that occasion.
On the needles are a couple more shawls, one a test knit and one from my friend Joanna’s August subscription box. I suspect I won’t be able to resist casting something else on very, very soon.
