Current Knitting

 Warning: This blog post contains Harry. 

Puddle #1: The King Bat Shawl

Harry has refused to budge when I asked him to help out, but I am slowly creeping around the edging, having actually finished one and a half sides. Although I try very hard to do at least one repeat a day, just about anything, including a compulsion to alphabetize my sock drawer, is sufficient to divert my attention. As someone once remarked to me about the first The Lord of the Rings movie: "I thought they would never get to Rivendell...." And speaking of the endless march to Rivendell, we have...

Puddle #2: The Queen Susan Shawl

Although I dearly love the pattern, I have to admit that it is a stupefyingly boring knit. The delicate tracery is mostly composed of a single motif, and I am thoroughly weary of it. Being only on Row 52 of 165, this initially sweet little pile of fluffy gossamer has mutated into the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the UFO basket, snapping and growling at me whenever I pass it by. Which I try to do often. But I gamely knit at least five rows a week, because I want to see it finished. I try not to look ahead to the interminable edging, lest I suffer mental collapse before the border is actually started. Harry furtively backs away towards the vegetable keeper, because he knows he promised to knit rows 53-63...

Genuine Finished Objects
There are few things in a knitter's life more precious than a friend who is always cold, and thus actually needs warm hats, mitts, and other small, fuzzy, and quickly finished objects. The Queen Susan Shawl of Avoidance has driven me into a relative frenzy of knitting winter gear, for example...

A lovely pair of Whitewater mitts out of Mini Mochi....

And a little Bainbridge neckwarmer out of handspun merino/angora/silk.

And lastly, because, next to a chilly friend, those with babies are also useful, as I can knit silly stuff like this:

The mitts, scarf, and elephant patterns are free on Ravelry and take little yarn, not much time, and, most importantly, have no edging whatsoever.

Those who have asked after Harry can draw comfort (or not) from the fact that he did not fall into a volcano, get eaten by an aardvark, or retire from the knitting world. He has, however, traded in his karaoke machine for a set of ten-pins. He thoughtfully set up a practice lane on the headboard of our bed, so we will always be aware of when he gets a strike and can wake up to give him a reward.

He generally bowls with his millipede buddy, Clarence, and Harry is currently knitting him a set of socks. He claims this project is preventing him from fulfilling the promises made to help out with the Puddles, but I think he's even more bored by edging than I am.

Current Knitting (and Spinning)

 King Bat Shawl

I slogged my way to the finish line of the shawl body a few days ago. As you might imagine, I am very tired of pink. I have miles of edging to knit on before the thing is completed, but I am putting it aside for a while to let my Pink Receptors recover from extended stimulation. Cindersall's reversal of the crown motif was masterful, and I think it looks better than the original.

Honeysuckle Shawl/Sweater
Having carefully placed the Bat shawl on the bottom of my UFO pile, I decided to treat myself with my rendition of the Honeysuckle shawl/sweater thing, which appeared in Issue #6 of The Knitter.

This design is beautiful--elegant, graceful, and feminine. I had to read the directions four times because I simply couldn't believe that the designer would actually take a round shawl and convert it to flat knitting. Thus, the reader is instructed to knit across the pattern row, turn, purl back, and then, when the piece is finished, sew up the back seam. Nah. I am knitting it in the round like a grown-up.

For the sleeves, the original design calls for casting off 40 stitches one one row and then casting on 40 stitches in the next row. The sleeves are knitted separately and then sewn into the gap. Why make an ugly seamline at the shoulder and force the knitter to do even more sewing? Instead, I will knit a contrasting piece of yarn over 40 stitches. When I am ready to do the sleeve, I will carefully undo the contrasting yarn, pick up the stitches around the armhole, and knit the sleeves from the top down to the wrist.

In an incredible display of foresight, I decided to bead only the sleeves and the front side of the sweater. I realized that if I beaded the entire thing, I would wear the sweater once, wonder why my back felt like llittle glass beads were digging into it, slap my forehead, and put the thing away forever.

I am using Hamanaka mohair/silk Parfait yarn and some pretty beads that have been languishing in the closet for a while. Harry finds the piece rather restful. Too restful. I have to shake him out of the thing every time I want to work on it.

Spinning
I love Corgi Hill batts. I love them to pieces. I want to make an entire room out of Corgi Hill batts and live there. While I am busy accumulating the raw materials for the Corgi Hill Extension, I actually spun some up. Here's a neat ball of Navajo-plied merino/silk:

It will probably become a scarf for Kyoko-san if Harry doesn't filch it and bury it in his stash drawer.

And here's what's currently on the spindle:

 

The lovely fluff is Corgi Hill merino/silk and the tulipwood/ebony spindle is from Spindlewoods. I have no idea what I will do with the finished yarn, but I am thinking it should be two-ply laceweight, which of course leads to wandering around my notebooks looking for an appropriate project.  Like I need another project...

Harry's King Bat--It's Alive!

When Harry first tossed me his redesigned border for the King Bat shawl, I was skeptical. After having knit this border section, I just laughed out loud. Who else could work bats and hearts into a Shetland ring shawl? Sharon Miller should never see this. I see a hoard of peasants out there warming up their pitchforks. Not good.

I am about 30% done with the border...from here on, except for the addition of another row of hearts, the border sort of mostly follows the original design. And I promise to be faithful to the edging, except where I might change it.


Current dilemmas revolve around whether to buy another Bosworth or veer off the well-trodden spindle path and get a Golding. I know I can't go wrong with a Bossie, but those Goldings are so lovely... I am sure there are plenty of opinions out there. Convince me.

Queen Ring Shetland Center--Complete!

Easy and fun to knit, the center for the Queen Ring/King Bat shawl didn't take long, either. I am under no illusion that the border (or the miles of interminable edging) will dance off my needles quite as quickly , but it's still a very pleasant pattern to work.

And the yarn! Technically, it's 52/2 60% merino, 20% cashmere, 20% silk. But to knit with it--it's incredible! It's stupendous! It's incredible! Oh whoops, I said that. It's bouncy. It's silky. It's soft. It's everything a gossamer yarn is supposed to be. It deserves a niche in the Yarn Hall of Fame.

Alas, I bought the only skein in the universe on my trip to Japan last year. I was so besotted with it that I decided that I had to have more.

I sent a sample to a mill in China and asked what their minimum order was for a custom spin. The bad news was that I needed to buy 50 kilos. Much as I loved it, I didn't love it 50 kilos-worth. Each kilo has 25,000 meters, and, while I am a fairly robust knitter, I couldn't see my way to stashing 1,250,000 meters of yarn. There are limits, even for me.

I figured there were probably a few other people who might go in with me on the buy. I posted the information in the Heirloom Knitting group on Ravelry and placed a little Post-It note next to the computer to write down the names of the five or six people I figured would want a kilo or two. To my utter bafflement, I had to quickly switch to a spreadsheet to keep track of the orders.

The good news is that I have 100 kilos subscribed. In about a month, I will be able to roll around in the stuff (just kidding, guys, really!)

The thought of 200 pounds of yarn landing in my yard is a bit daunting, but a dear lady is driving down from South Carolina to help us pack and ship the 2,500,000 meters of the yarn I am naming Phoenix.

Of course, Harry said he would help out by providing the entertainment. Unfortunately, he has developed a crush on Al Jolson. The house reverberates with the clickity-click of eight little feet tap-dancing on the dining room table. I can't wait to see what he has in store for us as we wrestle with mailing bags. Hmm, perhaps he will fit in one of them. (Joke--it's a joke!) I promise that nobody will open their package and find a tap-dancing spider in it. Unless, of course, you want one.

Going Bats

A well-written pattern is akin to a gripping novel--tightly plotted and suspenseful, and a satisfying denouement with all the loose ends tidily wrapped up. A poorly written pattern, on the other hand, reminds me of a badly produced movie--terrible acting, disjointed, confusing plot, and loose ends galore at the end.

Occasionally, I will run across a pattern that makes me snicker. For example, any production with the line "Reserve at least 10 hours for sewing together" is, by definition, a genuine howler.

When I encountered this particular direction in the Queen Ring shawl, I giggled for at least ten minutes.

The original shawl is knitted from the borders inward. I don't like that construction for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the epic sewing-bits-together at the end. I wouldn't mind the sewing so much if it produced an attractive finished product. It doesn't. Sewn-together seams look ugly and I won't use them.

The second problem with the original pattern is that only half of the border is neatly mitered around the center's corners. The other two sides are stretched into shape during blocking. The stretching might work if the shawl is knitted with a nice, compliant wool yarn. It probably won't work with something like cashmere/silk yarn, which has the elasticity of a watermelon. The fact that the corners in the lovely photo are scrunched together and not viewable makes me uneasy. I want fully mitered corners that won't produce an unpleasant surprise after hundreds of hours of intense knitting.

Thus, I regraphed the shawl to be knit from the center outward, which means the border is picked up around the center square and knitted around and around (and around and around and etc. etc., and so forth....).

This process has its own inherent problems. First, the border itself must be inverted, because it's being knitted from top to bottom instead of bottom to top. Anyone who has ever reversed a pattern knows that it's usually impossible to simply turn it upside-down. And then there is the tedium of having to purl every other round in pattern to maintain the garter stitch in circular knitting mode. I tried a number of different fake corners to avoid the purling, but didn't care for the results.

Unfortunately, at some point during this epic graphing production, I took a well-deserved break. When I returned to the computer, Harry had redesigned the shawl border to suit his bizarre awful regrettable erm, unique taste. He had lopped off the seed pods (a decision I applauded) and substituted the never-before-revealed Shetland motif: Flying Bats.



Harry announced that he just adores bats. I was a bit puzzled when he uttered that statement, because airborne insect-devouring predators just didn't strike me as arachnid-friendly. However, Harry pointed out that bats make exceptional targets and he enjoys plinking at them with his custom-built Barrett Model 82A1 .50 caliber sniper rifle (with BORS optics).

I also took issue with his introduction of non-traditional motifs into a mostly traditional Shetland shawl. I have this uneasy feeling that, after having worked his bats into the shawl border, I will open the door and find a mob of enraged Shetland Islanders bearing torches and brandishing pitchforks. But Harry pointed out that our designs often begin with a healthy respect for tradition and end up, well, different than the original pattern.

So, here's a bit of eye candy for you. It's one repeat of the center. The shawl is being worked in a 52/2 yarn composed of 60% wool, 20% cashmere, 20% silk that I purchased at Avril and dyed myself. Alas, there is no more of it, which is a real loss to the lace-knitting community. It's a lovely knit.