Shelda's Adventures with Lace

A blast from another project

Well, after starting my "Elizabeth" shawl, I seem to have become caught up in finishing up older projects. Maybe to "clear the decks," who knows? ;) I don't have many older projects, so how long can it take? (Don't answer that!)

When I first started my "Shawl Shaping Adventure" earlier this year, the first shawl I wanted to knit was JoAnn Besold's "More Than Circular" shawl. This pattern was published in Knitters No. 38 (Spring of 1995), and I remember being fascinated when I originally saw the magazine. Only 8 years of germination! The pattern has since been reprinted in The Best of Knitter's Shawls and Scarves.

This shawl uses a doily pattern knit with progressively larger needles as you work outward to make a circumference that is "more than circular," i.e. more than 360-degrees. This extra circumference makes the shawl curve around the shoulders and stay on.

The knitting of this shawl went very quickly, but then I got to the bind-off, which was really slow going. But I finally finished it. Here's the shawl spread out on my bed (not blocked, or dressed, however). The shawl is way more than circular (I'll try to get a photo of me holding it up to show you), but I think I can get it to lie flat for dressing.

Here's a close-up of the center. I like the pattern. I think it's an adaptation of a doily pattern called "Snow on the Mountain." At least that's my memory of it!

And here's a not-great picture showing where I have attached little beads to one point of the shawl . Also not a fast process, and I have many many points to bead. I'm not sure how steadily I will work on this, but I imagine it will be done eventually. When I get the beads on and get the shawl dressed, I will share more photos. I wrapped it loosely around my shoulders, and though I can't tell a whole lot with it all crumpled like this, I think it's going to lie nicely.

Elizabeth on the needles

Way back when Myrna Stahman was getting ready to publish Stahman's Shawls and Scarves, I volunteered to be one of her "proof knitters." I very much enjoyed this process, and made two swatches in very different yarns for the "Elizabeth" Shawl, but then never managed to actually start the shawl. At first I didn't think I liked my swatch much, but after it was dressed and I looked at it more, it grew on me. So when I started thinking again about knitting one of the shawls from the book, I kept coming back to the "Elizabeth." There are so many beautiful shawls in the book that it's very hard to make a decision.

Here's a photo of the original Elizabeth swatch I made back in 1999, using silk/wool Jaggerspun Zephyr in "Dianthus" on 3.5mm needles. At least I did make a note about the needle size I'd used, though it did take me awhile to find the paper it was written on!

I read through all the instructions carefully, including the chapter about sizing the shawls for a fine yarn (Zephyr qualifies) and/or larger body sizes (I quality). Myrna says that the number of stitches you pick up from your neck band to start your shawl "should measure approximately 40%-45% of the shoulder-to-shoulder measurement" of the person who will wear the shawl. My shoulder-to-shoulder measurement is 18 inches, so the range is 7.2 inches (40%) to 8.1 inches (45%).

My gauge, measured over the swatch, is 6.6666 stitches to the inch. So I need to start in the vicinity of 48 - 54 stitches. The "Elizabeth" as charted in the book begins with 27 stitches, and the building block increment is 18 stitches. 27+18 gives me 45 stitches, while 27+36 would give me 63 stitches. So a little too few or a few too many ;). I decided to go with the smaller number, but do a longer shoulder shaping (there are two blocks in the shoulder shaping shown, and I plan to do three, subject to draping the shawl around my shoulders at that point to see how it falls. One of the advantages of working top-down!

I spent a frustrating hour trying to find out why I had an extra stitch in my counts until I found an errata email that I had saved from Myrna. It applies only to the first edition of the book. Here's the gist of it: for all of the shawl patterns with a seed stitch band (Idella, Alberta, Alka, Barbara, Susan, Gracie, Anne, Frances, Elizabeth and Josephine), you need to decrease both ends of your seed stitch band to 6 stitches from the 7 you begin with. One end is clearly detailed, but the other K2tog is missing from the instructions. Click here for the full wording of the errata.

So, with that problem solved, I cast on my 7 stitches with a provisional cast-on and began knitting! Hurray! I didn't have enough of the "Dianthus" color Zephyr, so I'm using "Elderberry." The one shawl Myrna details knitted from Zephyr took less than four ounces, but since I'm making mine somewhat larger (and may also want to make it longer), I feel very safe with the eight ounces that I have of this yarn.

Here's a first look at the shawl on the needles, though the color doesn't show up very well (Elderberry is a very lovely muted purple). I've just finished 20 rows of knitting.

There's a sweet story about how I came by this yarn, and I get a chance to plug one of my favorite lace vendors: Sandy Terp of Moonrise. I ordered 8-ounces of Jaggerspun's merino yarn in Elderberry, and Sandy sent the Zephyr (silk/merino) by mistake. When I wrote to her about it, she sent me the yarn I had originally ordered and told me just to keep the yarn she'd already sent, and pass along her kindness to someone else. Customer service doesn't get much better than that!

I started a "prototype" Shawl!

No big surprise there, I suppose! I decided that I would indeed be wise to knit a Faroese shawl from Myrna's book before striking out on my own. What a concept!

I had already swatched for the "Elizabeth," and I started it yesterday, using Jaggerspun Zephyr (silk/wool blend) and 3.5mm needles. I included an extra block in the back panel for a larger shawl, and think I plan to continue the shoulder shaping down three blocks instead of two. I learned a LOT about how these shawls go together just from reading through the instructions with the plan to actually knit a shawl. Somehow you have to pay more attention when you're actually making decisions instead of just thinking about things. Funny thing, that ;)

Pictures tomorow!

This is complicated stuff!

I've just spent several hours working on charting the "Springtime" lace, and I see why I got hung up before! This is a pretty intricate pattern. For each shawl in the book (Stahman's Shawls & Scarves), Myrna has included a "building block," which is the basic unit for all the other charts. The "Elizabeth" and "Josephine" have the largest building blocks in the book: 32 rows X 18 stitches and 36 rows X 20 stitches, respectively. As best I can tell as this point (I haven't completely gotten the building block isolated to my satisfaction, although I think I just figured something out as I was writing this!), it's probably 24 rows X 38 stitches.

Working my swatch before, I decided that I didn't want to knit from the Kinzel charts directly (I'm not crazy about her symbols), and I wanted to have the freedom to arrange things in the same way Myrna has, and so I'm re-charting everything. It makes more sense to me as I read it, but it's slow going. To chart this pattern and have it make visual sense requires quite a few "no stitch" blocks, so it's not a straightforward process. Here's a little clip of my first try (the gray blocks indicate "no stitch" and the pink blocks are to remind me about a symbol that looks very like another one, but is worked differently).

As a side benefit, however, I 'm learning a lot about charting lace, and about the structure of lace; things I've wanted to know for a long time. I'm using Mac OS X, Microsoft Excel, and developing my own lace charting font (using Macromedia's Fontographer to modify a knitting symbol font I got years ago from XRX, Inc.) It's slow going at times (I've been working on charting lace off and on for about two years now), but I think I'm getting there. And this will be useful knowledge for the future, not just for this shawl. As I mentioned a few days back, I also want to learn to use Adobe Illustrator so that I can more easily make schematics of my shawl ideas. I think I'm thinking along the same lines as Sivia, who posted a comment on my previous entry, but without a schematic, I can't be sure.

I keep thinking that it might be wise to go ahead and knit one of the shawls in Myrna's book before I strike out completely on my own (I was one of her "proof-knitters" but I didn't actually complete a shawl). I'm pretty sure it would be useful to understand a bit more about how these shawls are structured. And I want to be knitting, not just charting and "figuring!" We'll see what I decide. It feels a bit like a side path, but it might bring me back around to the main path with a much clearer idea of how to proceed, especially if I continue working on the charting (and on learning Illustrator as well) as I go along.

I did know this wasn't an easy project when I embarked on it! If it had been, I would have finished it two years ago when I first had the idea. And I am enjoying the process, and feel like I'll eventually end up with a lovely shawl (or two), so all is well! At least I'm engaged again, and making progress.

Moving along

Sometimes you have to let one idea go so that another can take root and bloom. But I bet you knew that!

I've been looking over my notes on my mother's shawl and analyzing what slowed me down. First and foremost is the mental picture that sprang to my mind when I first saw the Kinzel "Springtime" pattern. The original cloth is a square, knit from the center, and the diagonal linds of the leaves in the lace radiate out in spokes from the center. The leaves hit each other "back to back" and form this amazing pattern. When my eyes lit on it, I immediately thought "Faroese shawl back panel!"

I've recreated the idea here from my lace swatch by cutting and pasting in Photoshop (I don't want to scan the photo from the book because it's copyrighted.) But isn't this neat? Click for larger view (photo will open in pop-up window)

But alas, this won't work for the back panel of a shawl. The knitting, remember, radiates outward from the center of the piece, and it's not possible to create this back to back pattern as a vertical piece of knitting (divorced from the full rectangle of the original). I was really upset when I realized this, and it put the project on hold for a long time. For a good while I wasn't sure it wouldn't work, just suspicious that it wouldn't. But I think I just have to accept it.

I could do the shawl differently and take advantage of the structure of the original, something like Cheryl Oberle's Irish Diamond Shawl. (See Wendy's page for a great example of this shawl), but I really wanted a Faroese. One of the things I love about the Kinzel pattern is that it has a plain mesh bottom row of diamonds, and a lovely edging that I want to make part of the finished shawl.

So it occured to me that I could use that plain mesh diamond split vertically down its middle to "fill-in" the edges of the leaf diamonds in the back panel of the shawl. I really need to learn to use Illustrator or Freehand to be able to convey these ideas graphically!

But now that I think I know my basic plan for this shawl, I just need to study a bit more, do a bit of charting, and then cast-on. I think I'm close!

The two-year old swatch

I've long been fascinated with the shaping of Faroese shawls. One of the unique attributes of these traditional shawls is that their shaping allows them to stay on the shoulders of the wearer. I was first introduced to Faroese shawls in Bundanaurriklaedid, translated from the Faroese by Marilyn van Keppel (I ordered this from Schoolhouse Press). Myra Stahman was also fascinated by this shaping, but didn't like the traditional construction of starting the shawl from the bottom. She was also interested in expanding the possibilities for the lace in these shawls beyond the garter-stitch based lace of the originals. She published Stahman's Shawls and Scarves, which includes top-down, stockinette-based lace adaptations of the Faroese shawls (and her lovely Seaman's Scarves). Schoolhouse Press also has this book in their lace section.

My mother requested a white shawl with a very open, lacey pattern. Since wool doesn't really come in "white," I spent a good bit of time collecting various yarns. She didn't want anything that could be considered beige, or worse, yellow (personal preference there)! After some searching I found a bleached white yarn from Skacel, "Merino Fine." When I next saw my mother, I presented her with a basket of yarns I had been collecting as possibilities. I was "saving the best for last" because I was pretty sure this would be the yarn she'd choose, and I started pointing out the various other yarns, holding them up for her to see. I'd set the Merino Fine aside, and finally she said, with just a hint of exasperation, "But what about that one?!" She had of course seen it immediately and her decision was already made. Only problem was that I hadn't knitted with a yarn that fine. I didn't really realize it was a problem until I started swatching!

I decided that I wanted to knit a shawl like those in Myrna's book, but none of them was exactly what I had in mind (I seem to have a genetic inability to exactly follow any pattern). I studied the patterns and charts in the book carefully and began to see that the central requirement for the patterns Myrna included for her shawls was that the lace be a diamond shape, framed by YOs. I started looking in all my lace books for diamonds, and found a whole list of possibilities. More looking, more thinking, and I decided that I would try and adapt Marianne Kinzel's "Springtime" design, p 83-89 of Kinzel's First Book of Modern Lace Knitting. The pattern in the book is a square tablecloth, but I think the diamond can easily be adapted to one of Myrna's shawls. The diamonds flow nicely in a triangle shape for the sides, the lace looks wonderful knit from the top down, the pattern is charted (and from all accounts error free), and there's a very pretty edging included. What could be better?! ;)

So with gratitude to both Myrna Stahman and Marianne Kinzel, I started swatching. I had to go down to a 3.25 mm needle to get the tension I wanted, and I at first found the going quite difficult. As I got further along in the swatch it stopped feeling quite so strange, but I still wasn't sure how it was going to look when I got to the blocking stage. It was rather a crinkly undistinguished mass before I blocked the swatch. But block it I did, and I'm quite happy with it.

click for larger view. (will open in pop-up window)

Sadly enough, most of this entry was posted to the Knitted-Lace list back in June of 2001! And I've done nothing further on the shawl since then. Time to get on with it, wouldn't you say?! ;)

Prioritizing the Priorities

I'm so bad at this! I make lists, and I write down my #1 priority, #2, #3 and so on, and I will almost always start at the bottom of the list, with the lowest priority item. I don't understand why, and it frustrates me no end. I think I have it in mind that I'll just clear up these little odds and ends and then the field will be clear for the #1 priority. As if!

Because you know what? The thing that you work on is the thing that gets done! And the field never does get cleared off. There are always new things to tempt and tantalize me. And then there's that bit about "expressed preferences," which I interpret to mean that you can tell a lot about what you really want to work on by what you actually DO work on. Kind of amazing ;).

So what does this all have to do with lace, you might ask? Well, as I think I said a few entries back, the thing that I want to prioritize is a shawl for my mother that I've had in the back of my head for at least two years now. Unfortunately, in the back of my head isn't on my needles!

I made a mental compromise that I would "quickly" knit up the Gammelrosa Bladmønstret Duk shawl, and do the planning on my mother's shawl on the side. But in the interim since I posted that, and showed everyone the pretty cone of yarn I intend to use, I've instead been furiously knitting a pair of (non-lace) socks, finishing up older projects, and thinking about the shawl for my mother. I also keep thinking about how I wanted to prioritize this project, and how I feel guilty that I haven't started it yet. I'd like to have it completed for her birthday in November.

And the cone of yarn that I have in mind for the Gammelrosa Bladmønstret Duk just sits there, looking pretty, but not really enticing me. I think that should tell me something ;)

Focused, very focused

I'm a lot more focused on the project at hand than I used to be, which is both a good and not-so-good thing. Or maybe I'm just going through a phase!

At the moment, I can't seem to get started on this project because I have several other projects still on my needles. I try to keep below five projects, and I'm currently at seven, with several things very close to finished.

I also can't seem to stop knitting socks for very long at a time. But I'm sure I'll get to this lace soon, right after I finish these socks!

Ain't it pretty?

As promised, here's a photo of the cone of yarn I'll be using to knit my "Gammelrosa Bladmønstret Duk." Btw, Mona was kind enough to let me know that this translates to "old-pink" leaf-patterned doily (or tablecloth). Many of the items in the book have "Gammelrosa" in their titles, and Mona says that refers to a certain pink. I'm imagining the pink of old-fashioned roses. Kind of a romantic translation, isn't it?

This is my cone of "Dragon Tales" 4/2 cotton in "Purple Haze," photographed overlooking the Geology Building on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus (I work on the third floor of the building next door). The yarn actually looks more purple/rosy than the photo. I didn't start my shawl last night as I'd intended (I knit on a "mindless" sock project instead). But tonight is another night, so you never know ;).

M-T-C Adventure #2

That's More-Than-Circular, in case you're wondering!

As I detailed on June 1, I've been thinking a lot about shawl shapings that allow shawls to hang on human bodies in graceful ways (especially larger bodies, since that's another of my interests). I'm not a fan of the seemingly ubiquitous triangle shawls because they seem to slip off the shoulders. I do like the Faroese shawls, both the traditional patterns and Myrna Stahman's top-down versions, but I'm not always enthralled with the design limitations imposed by the back panel on these shawls. I'm sure there are work-arounds, and I'd like to learn as much as I can about various things people have tried to shape shawls.

To that end, I'm investigating "more than circular" shawls. I originally heard about this idea from JoAnn Besold who sort of accidentally knit a circle shawl with progressively larger needles, and produced a shawl that hung very smoothly around her shoulders. She didn't realize quite what had happened until she folded it in half and realized that "the 'half' filled almost two-thirds of a circle." Voila! The more-than-circular idea was born.

As I said a few days ago, I knit her shawl recently with a heavy-ish cotton thread (actually I believe it's carpet warp, if truth be told!). I started on a size 5 (3.75mm) needle, and eventually worked my way up to an 11 (8mm, I think). I had a lot of fun with the knitting through a size 8 (5mm) needle, but after that point I didn't much like the knitting experience, nor the fabric I was getting. I had originally fallen in love with the photo of JoAnn's shawl, however, and looking at it realized it has the same look of the piece I was getting (she used size 5 crochet thread). So I decided to finish it, but to experiment with other techniques that would avoid knitting on such large needles relative to the thread.

I think the most obvious way to do that, at least in a circular format, is to simply add more "spokes" to the wheel. Doilies generally have a certain number of repeats that complete the circle (most often 6-8). So what if instead of 8 repeats, for instance, I cast on 9 or 10 instead?

I wanted to figure out the geometry of doing this. JoAnn says her half circle filled almost two-thirds of a circle, so if I follow her example, I know that I will need my shawl to be approximately 4/3 of a full circle (or 133%). How many points is that? I came up with the following chart:

And yes, I do realize that I'm a fairly anal knitter! ;) I actually think that anywhere from 2/3 to 3/4 of a half-circle would work well, so an acceptable range would be from 1.33 to 1.5. I know that I want a doily with quite a few rows. Besold suggests 75-90 for an elbow length shawl, but that's with the last rows on progressively larger needles, so I know that I need more rows on my smaller needles to compensate. I'm also a large woman and fairly tall, so I think extra length is usually good. My Renaissance Shawl had about 115 rows (if I remember correctly), so that gives me a good ballpark figure.

So now I just have to make a decision about which one of these wonderful patterns from Ragnhild Falch Ervik I want to knit next! There are truly enough gorgeous ones to make a person scream ;) The yarn I'm planning to use is variegated (I'll try and have a photo of it up tomorrow), and about a sport-weight cotton. I plan to start the shawl on size 5 (3.75mm) needles and work the 3" diameter that Besold recommends on that needle, then increase to a 7 or 8 (4.5-5mm) and stay there for the rest of the doily. I've decided on "Gammelrosa bladmønstret duk" (on page 40-41 of the first Kunststrikk volume, for those who happen to have copies; mine is the "2 bøker i 1" set of Kunststrikk 1 and 2).

The instruction starts "Legg opp 14 m fordelt på 3 små pinner. Flytt over til rundpinne nør arbeidet er stort nok. 1.-2.-3.omg rett." I think that means to cast on 14 stitches on three DP needles. As you can probably guess from the 14 stitches, this doily has seven points, so from my chart I could choose 9 points (129%) or 10 (143%). I think I'm going to go with 10.

I sent Mona and Kari an email with the few phrases I need translated from this pattern, and I think I might actually go ahead and cast-on tonight. We'll see!

Since I've not provided much in the way of eye-candy of late, here's a link to some gorgeous new shawl patterns. Sivia Harding is the creator of these, and I just got my hot little hands on two of the patterns yesterday. Yummy stuff! And I love the unique shaping of the "Waves in the Square " shawl. The site is still under construction, but Sivia is open for business. I received my patterns in just a couple of days, and they're quite well put together. Tell her I sent you ;)

Encouragement for New Lace Knitters

C asked if I had recommendations for new lace knitters. I really don't think lace knitting is much different than any other knitting. If you can do a yarnover and a decrease, you're most of the way there!

A rectangular scarf might be a good place to start, as you don't have to worry about shaping. There are so many patterns around I hardly know where to start. Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer has some wonderful free patterns on her website, Heart Strings Fiber Arts, as well as some gorgeous patterns for purchase (Click on "Enjoy the Freebies too" link for the free patterns.) Maggie Radcliffe also has some nice patterns, including one called "Beginner's Lace." You can find her at Maggie's Rags.

Or you might want to try a dish or facecloth (or three or four). These are a fun way to experiment with lace patterns until you're comfortable and ready to move on to larger projects. You can find lots of patterns at The Dishcloth Boutique.

There are several lists for lace knitters which offer lots of encouragement. I subscribe to Knitted-Lace and Laceknitters. It's nice to be in a group where you can ask questions, and lots of people post links to their finished projects which can really be inspirational.

So just find a pattern for a project you'd like to attempt and go for it! It's really far easier than the results might indicate. You can save fine yarns and small diameter needles until you're comfortable with the basics, but it won't take long to get there.

Lace Cravings!

Wow! I need a new lace project, and I'm having trouble figuring out what to knit next. I was so enthusiastic about the Norwegian Lace Doilies, but after doing this first one I don't have an immediate urge to do another. Maybe I'll feel differently after I get it blocked again. For some reason I'm putting that off.

I've also had a shawl project in mind, testing out some of the shapes that are designed to hang well on human bodies. I am nearly finished with JoAnn Besold's "More than Circular" shawl from the XRX, Inc. book, The Best of Knitter's Shawls and Scarves (the pattern was originally published in Knitters 38). In fact, with the exception of the final bind-off row, the shawl is done. I need to order some beads for the last row (to weight the shawl so it hangs better), and then finish that up. I can't really know what I think about the success of this project with it lumped in a pile in my knitting basket!

This shawl uses a doily pattern knit with progressively larger needles as you work outward to make a circumference that is "more than circular," i.e. more than 360-degrees. This extra circumference makes the shawl curve around the shoulders and stay on. I like this idea a lot, but I'm not crazy about the loose knitting towards the end of the shawl. I was having more fun knitting when the needle was smaller, and I liked the look of it better too.

I think my next experiment is going to be to start with more than a circle's worth of stitches at the beginning (cast on ten or eleven repeats of a doily design with 8 repeats, for example), and then work the whole shawl with the smaller needles. I'm not sure if the neck will lie smoothly with those extra stitches, or if I'll need to do some sort of adaptation there, but I do know that I won't ever find out just by thinking about it!

And I'm ultimately putting off a shawl for my mother that I really want to be my priority. But it's complicated (I'm adapting the pattern), and I have a lot to figure out before I can really get going on it. Or I think I do, and so consequently I move slowly.

But maybe I could actually combine these projects. For instance, I could use another of the Norwegian lace doilies as the basis for my shawl experiment with "more points than the average doily," and at the same time I could set myself a weekly goal for working on my mother's shawl. That would feed my immediate "lace jones" and still get me going on the other project as well. It even sounds workable!