At least there’s knitting to talk about today…
Kristie alerted me to the latest news from the Vintage
Shetland Project. “Publication date” is now mid-August, with the manuscript to
be finished in July. I can’t entirely remember my own progression through
belief to irritation to despair. I now don’t believe anything she says; I won’t
be disappointed again.
If you Google the VSP, you won’t learn any more. What
puzzles me slightly is that no negative note appears, at least in the first
five pages. Endless praise and excitement from 2015. No references to (for
instance) me. Could I be the only crowdfunder in the universe to be expressing
doubt and irritation on-line? And even if so, why not cite me? I often find
references to myself in Google when I look for something I’m interested in. Not
this time.
What a contrast, all this, to Kate Davies’ hap book. It is
already approaching
the page-layout stage, and I am absolutely sure that it will appear later
this year, as promised – and she doesn’t even have crowdfunders to please.
Yesterday I thought that what I needed was something new.
We’ve all felt like that. So I got out my packages from the Edinburgh Yarn
Festival. I wanted something that started small and simple and got bigger. I
settled on Mary Lou’s “Neap Tide” pattern for which I had bought two skeins of
glowing yarn (50% merino, 50% silk) from the Old Maiden Aunt.
Most of yesterday’s knitting time went into winding a skein
of it. It wasn’t exactly tangled, but it wasn’t exactly straightforward either.
And 400 yards is a lot of yards. But I got it done.
Then problems presented themselves. The pattern says
“fingering weight yarn”. There must have been something about the yarn which
suggested to me, that day at the EYF, that it was fingering weight. The label
doesn’t actually say so. Mary Lou’s recommended yarn is 255 yards to 100 grams.
Old Maiden Aunt (see above) has 400 yards. I hadn’t previously taken that in.
Old Maiden Aunt recommends 2-3mm needles. Mary Lou says
4.5mm. Swatching is for wimps – at least when we are talking about shawls. I
went for 3.5mm and am delighted with the fabric I’m getting. But I have knitted
enough to determine – no surprise – that if I persevere with the pattern as
written, my shawl is going to be on the small side. I think the solution will
be two extra repeats in the First Increase Section, where I now am.
Non-knit
Thank you for your comments about my sudden swoop into the
Greek alphabet yesterday. I wasn’t doing anything fancy at the time. CKP, you
may well be right that I hit Alt-Shift as I was sitting here thinking what to
say next. I won’t try it again, just at the moment. And I enjoyed the Wikipedia
entry about “lorem ipsum”. I have often wondered. It must have been very
satisfying for the scholar who identified the passage in Cicero which has been
rubbished to furnish that text.
Your shawl gauge experience is a powerful example to me to keep on experimenting if I don't like the fabric. Often I just take the suggested path figuring the pattern author knows more than I do. Or maybe it's just laziness:-). Knitting can be a quixotic adventure sometimes, as you often illustrate. So many variables, including the time of day I decide to cast on, and whether it is sunny (more optimistic) or not (great for robotic knitting, but not for casting on). Thanks for the steadying hand, Jean. Cheers, Chloe
ReplyDeleteI knit my very first lace shawl, an EZ pi, in shetland fingering on size 6 or 7. It is light and drapey and warm and squishy. I still love it and use it more than any I have made since. Gauge is a personal decision that doesn't seem very important when knitting a shawl.
ReplyDeleteI've used a fair amount of OMA yarns and that is definitely fingering weight. If you have a look on Ravelry Neap Tide actually uses a sport weight yarn. Again on Ravelry, other people have used 3.5mm needles and even more have used 4mm for shawls knit with OMA silk/merino. I'm sure it will look lovely as Lilith's colours are just sublime.
ReplyDeleteLovely blog Kristie and lovely grandson.
Jean, I'm honored you are making Neap Tide. You can certainly increase away, in fact if you weigh the yarn as you go you can work some extra repeats in the center as well until you are close to half way through the yarn.
ReplyDeleteI just went to Ravelry to check out Neap Tide and added it to my favorites. I really enjoy sideways shawls/scarves and that's a really pretty one. I see one by Christal made with sock yarn that's very pretty and is 63" by 13" which is surely a nice size for a scarf. I'll be doing this one day; goodness knows I have lots of yarn in the stash that would be great for this. Thanks for the design and thanks to Jean for making it. (I do not need another project just now, though. Alas.)
Delete