Shelda's Adventures with Lace

Not a bit of lace

Nope, not lace, not even knitting, but are these cute or what? ;) I'm a Halloween baby, so I am always looking for Halloween fun of one kind or another. Actually, I have plans for some knitted scarves and shawls with a Halloween theme, but that's another story.

This is the nail art I had done last night. What a kick!

Shawl pictures coming soon!

Not a very consistent blogger

That's me: not a very consistent blogger. I mean to blog, but sometimes life gets in the way.

I've been knitting away on my "Interlude" project that turns out to have taken up most of the month of October (the Adagio shawl). It's been good, actually, since I've had a lot going on in my non-knitting life, and this has been a semi-mindless project. I think I'm nearing the end of the plain pattern rows, although I'm enlarging the shawl and and am not sure yet exactly when I'm going to stop (right before I run out of yarn, I hope!).

I'll have pictures up soon, but I did think I better post something before everyone decides I've completely abandoned my blog!

Interlude, uh-huh!

This is my shawl. This is my shawl on drugs.

Um... that's not quite right. Maybe it's me on drugs!

This is my shawl on 4mm needles, with several hours of knitting completed.

This is my shawl on 4.5mm needles, just started over.

At this point both shawls are still in process, although shawl #1 is now on hold. I just grabbed the needles specified in the pattern and took off. And the fabric is feeling okay, but not as soft and light and drapable as I remember Candace's original shawl feeling. As I knit I kept having this niggling little feeling that I should go up a needle size and see how it felt. But since I was at this all-afternoon meeting, I just kept knitting.

Then this morning I realized I had missed a yarn-over several rows back. I also checked my gauge and found I was pretty much right "on" with the stitch gauge but my row gauge was way tighter. So I decided to try starting the shawl again on a larger needle with a separate ball of yarn and see what I thought. I'm not really far enough along to tell yet, but I suspect try #2 is going to be preferable. Another factor was the tightness of the slipped edge stitches as I started out. I didn't realize that I needed to have them very nearly "sloppy loose" to keep the edge flexible and stretchy so it will block out smoothly.

Ah, well, it's all a learning process, right?! The Koigu is absolutely delicious to knit with, and I'm loving the look of the shawl. I've done a bit more "futzing" with the fit for a larger body, and I'll detail that when I'm more sure of where I'm going to end up.

But I think this shawl turned into more than the quick interlude I had in mind. On the other hand, this shaping seems to have lovely implications for adapting all my triangular shawl patterns in a way that makes them fit and hang better.

Ah, just a note: the color of today's photos is more "true" than those yesterday. There looks to be a lot of purple in the yarn yesterday, and there really isn't.

Fun Koigu Interlude!

Tomorrow I am going to be attending an afternoon long presentation, so of course I need to have a mindless (and fun) project to take along with me! So I'm inserting this fun shawl into the middle of my knitting queue to have something to take tomorrow, and well... just because I want to!

Is this not gorgeous?

It's Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino to knit Candace Eisner Strick's “Adagio” shawl. The shawl does fit nicely into my overall goal of exploring shawl shaping. She has two shawls with this neat little method of making the shoulders lie nicely on the body, the “Adagio” and the “Allegro.” I was lucky enough to take a workshop with Candace last spring at the Greater St. Louis Knitter's Guild, and got to try on her Koigu “Adagio” shawl. It was a little too small for me, but trying it on was great because I could see how much bigger it would need to be for a good fit.

So soon after the workshop I treated myself to a kit with 3 extra skeins of yarn (I erred on the side of too much as leftover Koigu is never a problem!) You can find these and other patterns from Candace at her website, Strickwear.

Audiobook I'm listening to: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Yes, I've already read it, but I absolutely love Jim Dale's readings of these books for Listening Library. Exceedingly well done, and most enjoyable!)

Elizabeth Photos at last!

Finally, finally!

I never anticipated ending up so "on hold" over a photography issue. Well, I've also been mondo busy, and that doubtless had something to do with it! This weekend I was down in southern Missouri for my Aunt Zelma's 90th birthday celebration, and my father was happy to take photos for me. I'm standing near the driveway of my grandparent's house in these.

Right now I'm calling this my "Too-long Elizabeth" shawl. Here's a front view.

And a side view that also shows how long the shawl is in back.

And a "wing" detail. My plan was to have the shawl end at about my wrist (which Myrna Stahman says works well for a dressy shawl). As you can see, I got a little carried away! You can probably see that I made the back panel of the shawl somewhat too wide as well. I was determined to get it big enough to sit comfortably on my shoulders, but the line that should sit on the shoulders works itself forward a bit because of the extra width in the back. Not a big deal, but I now have a much clearer idea of just how wide a shawl needs to be for me.

I also got a chance to have my mother try on the shawl. It fits her very much as it fits me. I thought her shoulders were somewhat narrower and more sloping, but either my assessment was off, or it simply doesn't matter in a fabric as fluid as this. I will see her again later in October, so I'm planning to frog back a repeat and re-do the seed stitch border at that shorter length before then. We'll have a final fitting to see if that length works, and I'll have all the numbers I need.

I'm very glad that I did this "prototype" shawl. I feel like I worked out the issues with this shawl and I'm "good to go" for the big project.

Current audiobook: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai.