As you can see from the wrinkly picture below, two repeats of the Black Widow Spider Queen shawl are now complete, and I am well into the third of four repeats. Nothing of any note to report--no dropped stitches, no tinking, no frogging, and no cat-claw snags (thank you, Laptop).
I am fiddling around with the border patterns, because I will be knitting them in-the-round to avoid the Franken-seam that grotesquely deforms the original. When I have the process all worked out, I will post the instructions, in case anyone wants to follow in my tottering footsteps.
And here's a pix of my Dragone border. I am a quarter around at this point, and am very pleased with the dragon-scaly look.
For those who wish to further totter along with me, here is the chart of the border pattern. The even-numbered rows are purled, so don't forget row 16, ok?
This weekend, we are taking a break and driving up to Asheville, North Carolina. Talk about target-rich environments! When I Googled for Yarn Stores in Asheville, I got 220 hits! After I stopped hyperventilating, I grazed through the results and found that most of them were typical goofy seach returns. But there were 15 genuine yarn stores in the area, so I will be busy pinching and poking, hoping in vain to find yarn for Mountain Ash.
Poor Mountain Ash. So far, I have considered and rejected about seven different yarns, including one that was supposed to be hand-dyed to a submitted sample. The dyer overdid the green (it's a bit too minty-fresh for me), so I had her overdye that to dark blue. Now I have 2500 yards of lovely silk merino lace for something, but not, alas, Mountain Ash.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Shawl Updates
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
ooh--I really like the edging you're doing on the Dragon shawl! And your Black Widow is coming along so well--looking forward to seeing what you do with the border. :)
I have many fond memories of Asheville from my days in NC, but those were before I got into this whole knitting thing. What a lovely place....
The Black Widow is truly a thing of beauty. I do love the border of the Dragone. It does look just the right scaly to me.
Have a great trip!
Dear fleegle,
Your knitting looks fabulous! Your scales are very reptillian and excellent with that shawl. As for Spider Queen, she looks just great in black and I hope you aren't going blind knitting her. I look forward to see how you change the border because I too have an aversion to doing it the way the orignal says to do it. I'd much rather knit it in the round and see no reason not to do it that way.Especially if you end up giving us hints on how you mange it :-)
I see someone mentioned Earth Guild, which I highly recommend for it incredible variety of yarns and inifinite other toys. I would also suggect you go into Purl's Yarn Emporium. It's not particularly large, but it has a good selection, and is organized by color. It's like walking into a big fluffy rainbow.
Cassie in Winston-Salem NC
I am truly dating myself here, but I have to tell you that I practically lived in the Earth Guild when they opened in Cambridge, Mass. in the late '60s. It was a wonderful store even then...from them I learned weaving and spinning and dying and tatting and on and on.
They moved to Ashville in the '70s, and when I visited the store for the first time last year, I was delighted to see many of the same faces.
We also visited Purl and frankly, the customer service was appalling. Like none. I waved $100 worth of yarn in front of the salesman, and he ignored me in favor of a gaggle of cute young things. I returned the yarn to their proper places and left.
My mother was right--as soon as you turn 50, you become invisible.
We will return this weekend and see if it has improved any. Or I have somehow become visible again.
I love the border! It really does look like dragon scales.
The Black Widow is looking great, as is the Dragon.
And is your cat's name really Laptop? That just made me laugh out loud!
Your shawl work is lovely. Maybe one day I'll get there. Always seems to be something else that has to be done first. I wish I had read your blog earlier, because you have probably already left for your trip. At any rate I hope you go to Yarn Paradise in the Biltmore Village there in Asheville. It is a wonderful shop with a huge selection, and the ladies who assist you couldn't be nicer staff. Hope you have a fun trip.
where is the pattern for the black widow, or is it yours? I want to try it.
oh, by the way, I'm over 50 too, but I think I became invisible after I gave birth to my first child. And that was over 20 years ago. I've kind of gotten used to it. But I ALWAYS leave shops in which I am ignored or don't get good service, especially if they are the kind of places that should have good service--small, expensive, etc. I also usually don't give second chances. I mean part of the fun is paying to be noticed, right?
Paula, the Spider Queen shawl pattern is available from http://www.blackberry-ridge.com/spdrquen.htm
If you read the sequence of posts about it, you'll see I modified the center panel slightly.
One thing I love about Japan is the customer service. When you walk into a store, you are the only person in the universe to the salesperson. Or salespeople, depending on how busy the place is. Every time I come back to the US, I am once again flabbergasted by the rude salespeople, lack of customer service, and the fact that I only seem to be invisible in my native country. Sad.
Great job. That is so cool looking.
This border is georgeous...
What shawl did u put it on..it looks so pretty too
Post a Comment