Category: Flower Basket

New Threads FRIDAY!
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the Flower Basket Shawl
Pattern: Interweave Knits Fall 2004
Designer: Evelyn A. Clark
Yarn: Dzined *Handpainted Wool/Hemp Sportweight*
Color: Orange & Blue & Yellow
Gauge: 20 sts/28rows over 4″
Needles: #7

Now that I’ve finished my very 1st Shawl, I’m wondering –
WHY THE H Did I wait so Long to Try This?

1. Was it the thought of having to pay attention to the charting and details? Nope – after several Aran cardies, I should’ve realized that fundamentally the stitch patterns are etched in the brain after a few repeats.

There were, counting right from the top neck edge, 7 full pattern repeats in Blue; 8 full pattern repeats in Orange; and the final edge chart in Orange, with two rows of Yellow. All yarn was one-of-a-kind handpainted Wool/Hemp Sportweight from Dzined.

2. Maybe it was because of all that skinny, tiny yarn – it might take forever and a day to finish something so small in gauge. But actually, the gauge was really rather large – I was using size 7 needles which resulted in a standard worsted gauge of 20/28…

3. Hmmm… Fear of Blocking? NAY, I was able to score some blocking wires at Stitches Midwest this summer and they were wonderful! I washed the completed shawl (it was filthy – old, stashed yarn & weeks of manhandling – EEEWW) – you just thread the wires through the shawl edges and pull and pin to shape.

The only thing I found out about blocking that was a little scary was I JUST COULDN’T STOP moving the Pins. Pin. Re-pin. Pin Re-Pin. Eventually I grew so weary from the neurotic fussing, I just collapsed on the couch and dozed – good thing too because the damn shawl was TAKING UP THE ENTIRE BED!

4. And yes indeed, my lace making friends – I am HOOKED!

…More Images HERE in the Flower Basket Picture Gallery

…Read the Complete Notes HERE…

the Pensieve of the Lacemakers

At some point in the lace making,
the memories of the ancients arrived.

No longer was I jerking along and bobbing my head reading the charts; my hands became fluid in their movements. I found the areas of pattern repeats by touch not sight and flew…

This enlightened state took place not at the beginning. Not in the middle when tedium and mass crush the spirit, but at the very end, when now, empowered by intuitve understanding, I could’ve knit forever and a day.

At this moment, 7/8ths of the way, nay, 98? 99% of the way to the finished (and highly desirable edge) I stumbled.

Or more correctly, the Little Bad Muse stumbled…

I was almost OUT of YARN and there were 2 rows to go!

Surely my calculations/estimations were correct? Surely the amount the pattern called for was accurate? Sadly, I’m sure, this was not to be…

Desperately, I started thinking about what was to be done.

Tear out my hair! NAY – it was once again growing out from a bad haircut and I could not spare a millimeter.

Rippout the last pattern repeat and repurpose the edge with that? NAY – I was stuck to my proportions of blue to orange like the Super Glue bonding to your finger and the package wrapper when instead you’re trying to repair an earring or two…

Rant and Rave and Raid the STASH? LIGHTBULB! But alas, there’s nothing there remotely in the dramatic range of your first two colors…

But wait. Look UP. See your Sock Yarn Stash. See sticking out one lonely little ball of Hemp/Wool left over from some socks…

EUREKA!

This yarn was not the same color but it was almost the same colors – shades of yellow, rust, brown touched with orange. Applied on the very edge of my shawl, it would make a light little froth of color, maybe accidently banded on the curving edge wherever the darker tones arrived.

It was meant to be…

…to be continued. For the whole shebang read it HERE…

Knit1 YO K1: the Worry Beads of a Troubled Mind…

It Grows! It actually LOOKs like a shawl! I am amazed and humbled. I had not the faith to think it actually, by my hand, could.

All I had was time; lots of time with nothing but the temptation to immerse myself in the negative so instead I kept my head down.

And I kept my hands busy.

The Worry Beads, they tumble…

With most of the projects I’ve worked on in the last couple of years, I do a parallel color study. This shawl was the actual result of me looking at a favorite orange chair in my living room that had a
blue patterned pillow on it.

It seemed, once that color pair was in my brain, I started to see it everywhere, in and out of my house.

As the shawl started to grow, once I added the Orange to the Blue, the drama jumped; it was reminiscent of something else I was very, very fond of: Oriental Fabrics and Tapestries.

The piece below, a Chinese embroided Court Robe, (from the galleries of Marla Mallett Textiles), has been my touchstone while I continue to knit the Flower Basket…

used with permission