It's a Boy!

My 13th grandchild was born yesterday, a 7lb 11oz boy, younger brother to James. No pics yet, so today's illustration is the one this Blog started with, the shawl I knit for this child. It is my fourth attempt to design a Shetland shawl. Some have been more successful than others. Now I must tear myself away however briefly from the solipsistic delights of Blogging to post the shawl on my website, with explanatory notes.

I picked an edging from Sharon Miller's wonderful "Heirloom Knitting". Because the repeat didn't give me the length I wanted for the sides, I added a transition bit at each corner, simply repeating the first and last row of the edging pattern for a while. It looks a bit odd, but does the trick. Iy would have been better to have taken a few rows out of the edging pattern and knit the scallops (therefore) smaller but in a multiple of stitches that would have achieved what I wanted. That would have required too much thought.

The trapezoids have at their centres a swastika, not to express lunatic political opinions but because it is an ancient Hindu symbol of good fortune and the baby's mother is a Hindu. In the corners appear thistles to represent the baby's Scottish-born father, my son. Then there are sort of paisley-like teardrop things floating about. This is not entirely successful. Trapedoids, I am now convinced, need a zigzag line of some sort from one edge to the other, to pull them together. Another 13 grandchildren and I might begin to get somewhere with shawl design.

The centre square, which is fairly successful, I think, is meant to represent the London Transport symbol, a circle with a horizontal bar through it, to stand for the child's birthplace. London, I mean, not that he was born on a bus. It can be discerned with the eyes of faith.

Meanwhile, back at the Wallaby, I am in the process of attaching the sleeves. It looks small, but I think it is just bunching on the needles. I seem to be getting the gauge I'm aiming at -- seven stitches to the inch -- which gives the wanted circumference of 25 inches.