I've blocked the little lace shawl - or generously sized scarf - that comes from
the Bluefaced Leicester sheep, courtesy of
Dye Dreams. The camera went MIA while the lace was on the blocking board, but I used loads of T-pins on a big sheet of homosote, a fiber
board available at home improvement stores. A yardstick also came to my assistance to help with one long side of the triangle.
Two lace patterns, each ten stitches wide, alternate virtually
seamlessly in the Rose Ribbons shawl from Evelyn A. Clark's excellent little book, Knitting Lace Triangles. I got hooked on her menu of four interchangeable pattern stitches, easily combined, with an edging that fits them all. Evelyn's
particular approach to lace triangles got me thinking about the architecture of it all and the implications for pattern flows,
setting patterns on the diagonal, and more. Hopefully all of these musings will yield some interesting results in the not-too-distant
future.
Evelyn takes two right triangles and sits them
back to back, so that their vertical sides rise on a parallel course to a point. In the photo below, the big triangle has
been set on its side, with the spine crossing the back of the chair.
I came to the reading with the assumption she would start the knitting at the narrow
tip and work to the long straight side at the base of the two back-to-back triangles. (Half that long straight side is
shown running more or less vertically up the back of the chair.)But surpise! Evelyn asks us to start at the bottom of the
spine, in the center of the long long base, with a few stitches on either side of a one-stitch column that ascends to
the tip. The sequence of increases makes the triangular shape clear from the start. And there's a choice of
provisional cast-on methods. My favorite is the garter stitch tab. The remnants of the garter stitch tab are still
attached to the bottom center of my shawl, in a wisp of yellow yarn, so you could better visualize how the piece begins.
I worked with the Dye Dreams luster sox yarnon size 3 Addi Turbo lace needles.Those Blueface Leicester do grow wonderfully soft and lustrous wool. And I love the Addi
Turbos, available at your LYS I'm sure. The tips give so much control, and if there's a time when one needs control,
it's when knitting lace. For the bind-off I went up three needle sizes, to 6, because I am notorious for binding off too
tightly and then having to do it all over again. And it's much easier to go up in needle size than to try to change tension
just for a special occasion like binding off. In retrospect, I could have gotten away with size 5 needles.
I
love the way the two back-to-back triangles come together with the border all in one piece, without the necessity of picking
up stitches. Then again, there are enough stitches on the border so that I really don't want to know the number. I just
pretend I'm beginning a lside trip on a long journey. In the future, I see the faded denim lace paired with like-minded
jeans and a crisp white shirt. The right scarf/shawl pin would set everything off.
Comments
I have been AWOL,
suffering blog guilt all the time.
I
will blame it on a lace addiction.
And
a new puppy.
Of course, puppy tried to eat the lace. Beauty loves beauty!
Her name is Ming Ming.
She's a mix of Black Lab and German Wire Haired Pointer. I love her kisses. She is a bundle of love. Kitty is
training her well. We, on the other hand, are going to puppy school.
Ming Ming is a Nashville girl. She came to us
via Paws New England and the Critter Cavalry Rescue. Her sisters, Raisin and Jessie, and her mom, Miss T, still need loving homes.
The lace Ming Ming favored was a nearly completed shawl in a wonderfully
lustrous (nothing but the best) fingerweight yarn spun from the wool of Bluefaced Leicester sheep. It comes from Dye Dreams. Not only is this superwash wool as soft as a cloud, it is extremely strong - strong enough to withstand puppy teeth!
I ran half way across the back yard to get the shawl out of Ming Ming's mouth, Addi Turbo lace knitting
needles and all. Ming Ming is on the shy side, or so I thought. I had been sitting on the grass, knitting, waiting for
her to come close. I don't know what prompted me to get up, but seconds after I turned my back, she dashed out from
her canopy of bushes and snatched the knitting from my bag. She can be excused. She is just a baby after all, only five
months old.
When I pried the shawl out of her mouth (delicious!) there was a u-shaped gap in it. Fortunately,
I had worked the pattern often enough so that I was able to ratchet up the dropped stitches using a crochet hook. But if that
hadn't worked, I still would have had a lifeline to fall back on.
Add puppy precautions to the list of reasons
knitters should use the lifeline in working lace.
For anyone wondering what I'm talking about, the lifeline is just
a length of scrap yarn threaded through the loops of live stitches still on the needles so that the work can be ripped back
to a particular row without losing track of the pattern. The lifeline is just one strategy for minimizing wear and tear on
the knitter. I admit that sometimes I cheat and skip the lifeline for two or three pattern repeats, especially when I've
learned the sequence of stitches and mistakes come few and far between. But my experience with Ming Ming reminds me not
to take unnecessary chances!
