Tag Archives: shawls

This is not a shawl

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Karen's Textured Shawl in progress

This is my Textured Shawl, you know. The one Kristine observed started out life as a moth, which has since evolved into a stingray. What it has not evolved into is, well, a shawl. My feet will give you some sense of scale, and while they are undeniably large, they are at least half the length of any self-respecting triangular shawl. I have only enough yarn left for a few more rows of the garter edge; the two skeins I have are apparently all I’ll ever be able to get. So I’ve been doing constant math trying to make sure I don’t run out.

As I near the last row, I’m not sure it’ll be big enough to qualify as a kerchief. I may need to select a small child to give it to.

But it’s puzzling. This is the hazard of knitting from something like Orlane’s Textured Shawl Recipe, of course. She’s given no gauge or dimensions. She says she used 2 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas’ Suri Merino (DK, 164 yds/skein), and the Ravelry page shows that she used US9 needles. So I can’t know how my gauge compares to hers, but I’m using 2 skeins of A Verb for Keeping Warm’s Pioneer (worsted, 160 yds/skein) and US8 needles, so we should at least be in the same ballpark, right? Because I’m worried about running out, I knitted a row or two less, here and there, than she says she knitted — maybe a total of 5 or 6 rows less. Sure, her gauge could be really loose (although it doesn’t appear to be), but twice as loose? Doubtful. So I’m at a loss as to how mine is so much smaller than hers.

Also, raise your hand if you think this rhombus of mine will block out to a proper triangle! I’m hoping for multiple blocking miracles here.

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I also hope everyone’s weekend is grand! Tell me what you’re working on, if you’re so inclined …

New Favorites: Frida, Frida, Frida

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Frida lace shawl designed by Hiroku Fukatsu

Am I turning into a lace shawl person or something? I’ve long had profound respect for the design work that goes into a truly phenomenal shawl pattern, and equal respect for people who can knit them. (By which I mean people who have both the technical ability and the attention span!) But a lace shawl just isn’t something you’re likely to find me wearing.* Or at least, hasn’t been. But I am increasingly obsessed with this Frida shawl from the latest Brooklyn Tweed collection. It caught my eye while they were teasing the collection. I gazed at it forever when the lookbook came out. And I just keep going back to it! Every time I look at it, I love it more. Designed by Hiroko Fukatsu,** it’s a little bit Japanese, a little bit Mexican; it’s quite a bit of stockinette combined with a little bit of geometric lace; and that use of loop stitch is just utterly ingenious. I’ve gone beyond admiring it, and have had multiple conversations with myself about what color I want it in. Do you understand: I am picturing myself in this shawl! But that still leaves the little problem of its being a fingering-weight lace shawl. Who do I think is going to knit it for me?

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*Not that there’s anything wrong with wearing a lace shawl, mind you — it’s just not characteristic of irredeemable minimalists like myself.

**Aka “Roko,” whose blog I’ve been subscribed to for ages, even though I can’t read a word of it. But her knitting is amazing, and anyone who names their blog after a Doris Day movie is good people in my book.

New Favorites: Cheerful shoulderwear

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Colorful shawl and cowl from Knitscene Accessories 2013

Shoulderwear? If it’s not a word, it should be. Anyway, I might have to buy the new Knitscene Accessories, drawn in by these two wraps:

TOP: San Cristóbal Shawl by Ashley Rao, which would be great with or without the fringe.

BOTTOM: Icelandic Star Cowl by Julia Farwell-Clay, which of course I’m imagining in charcoal and ivory even though that would suck all the cheerfulness right out of it.

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On another bright note, this week’s ICYMI post is Knit the Look: Elisa Nalin’s pink-striped pullover.

Wraps I’d like to knit for my mother

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wraps to knit for mom

Dear Mom—

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I didn’t knit you anything for Mother’s Day this year. (Sad face.) BUT I have been thinking a lot about that conversation we had when I first started knitting. You know, the one where I showed you a bunch of lovely things I wasn’t qualified to knit? Most of those are still a bit out of my comfort zone, but I’m feeling pretty confident in my junior lace-knitting skills these days and am eager to try to my hand at something a little bit fancier for you. But this time I want you to have a hand in picking it out. Here are some ideas (additional images of each if you click the links), but if none of them makes your heart leap with longing, we can look at other options — there’s no end of them. Think about colors, too, and we’ll pick out the yarn together once we’ve decided on a pattern. Meanwhile, Happy Mother’s Day and thanks for being you — I love you!

1. Snowflake Stole by Véronik Avery, very straightforward and lovely

2. Checkerboard Lace Scarf from the Purl Bee, could easily be knitted to more wrap-like proportions if you like

3. Edie triangular shawl by Bristol Ivy, probably the most ambitious of the 4, but I can do it!

4. Terra triangular shawl by Jared Flood, simpler overall texture with a few lace repeats along the edges

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Dear everyone else, this week’s ICYMI post is last year’s Mother’s Day post, A kerchief for my mother.

Things may have gotten a tiny bit out of control

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orlane's textured shawl in avfkw's pioneer yarn

This week I swatched one thing, cast on another, and the yarn arrived to finish knitting a third. Plus there’s still Acer waiting for me to fix my mistake and start moving forward again. It occurred to me maybe I should take stock of my WIPs and, uh, it’s much worse than I realized. So let’s just focus on the new guys:

The little blue swatch is for the sweater I promised my husband last fall. It’s meant to be Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Seamless Hybrid with Jared Flood’s modifications, because I’m so curious about the construction of the shoulders, but I may chicken out (by which I mean, take the more controlled path) and do it top-down. (I have until the swatch is laundered and re-measured to decide.) Bob is very, very particular about sweaters and I don’t want to risk it being even an inch short or long for his taste. I want him to love and wear it, when all is said and done.

The ivory wedge makes my heart go pitty-pat. One of the very first patterns (possibly the first pattern) I ever downloaded was Orlane’s Textured Shawl Recipe. I love that shawl more than I can say (so many beautiful renditions of it, including Nicole Dupuis’ seen draped over her couch here), but of course the “recipe” was utter greek to me at the time. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I could make sense of it and knit it. And all this time, pretty much every new yarn I meet, I ask myself if it’s the one — the one to become my Textured Shawl. I decided Pioneer is it. And I have to tell you, this combination of yarn and stitch pattern is nothing short of addictive. I cannot wait to get back to it.

Tell me about you, please! Thanks for reading this week, and have a wonderful weekend —

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New Favorites: Camp wear

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perfect campsite knits

I have got camping fever, people. West Texas road trip fever. Live in a van fever, even. I’m way past due for an outdoor adventure, and editing a book of camping recipes (with corresponding drool-inducing images of savory foods in cast-iron skillets over open fires) is not helping. Then along comes the preview for the new issue of Pom Pom Quarterly. Look! Oddly, I wasn’t factoring knitwear into any daydreams I may have been having, but I am now!

LEFT: These adorably slouchy Camp and Trail socks by Pom Pom’s Lydia Gluck would be a dream after a long hike into the backcountry or around a campground fire.

RIGHT: And this Flying Squirrel wrap by Michiyo (from the new Brooklyn Tweed Wool People 5 collection) would be equally perfect around camp. It’s a big rectangle shawl with anchoring armholes on two corners, which you wouldn’t always have to use. It cracks me up that the pattern is called Flying Squirrel (get it?), and that it’s defined as a “textured stole garment.”

Have I ever told you my friends Meg and Jo (mother and daughter), who taught me to knit, take camping trips together where they just camp and knit? I need to get in on that.

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Knit the Look: An emerald scarf-shawl

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How to make a knitted version of this silk scarf-shawl

I remember once seeing a knitter tweeting about finishing a triangular shawl and wondering whether only knitters wear shawls. I think the answer is pretty much yes. But there’s so much potential there! I am completely in love with this girl with her giant silk paisley scarf folded into a triangle and worn as a shawl with faded jeans. I love the emerald — color of the year or not — and it sent me in search of something I never imagined wanting: a colorwork shawl, in the realm of a scarf print. Or better yet, a square lap blanket that can be worn folded like this, such as Kate Davies’ Tír Chonaill — ideally converted to fingering weight, and knitted with something like Valley Yarns BFL Hand Dyed in Hemlock for the varying yellow-greens, paired with a natural. To give it that classic scarf edge, knit a thin border in the natural, followed by a wide one in a matching solid green. (And hey, for the socks, have you seen the new Petit Fours pattern at Quince and Co? A near-perfect match.)

See Vanessa’s recommendations for the rest of the outfit.

Unrelated: This week’s ICYMI post is Blog Crush: Karen Barbé, who never ceases to wow me.

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Street style photo © Vanessa Jackman; used with permission