Knit Sisters

I’ve been working diligently away on the Handsome Triangle shawl.  However, like Icarus before her, she really doesn’t show that much progress in photos.  That didn’t stop me from taking one, though.

 

Also, like all lace, she looks quite unpromising unblocked–all shrivelled up.

When I started knitting again as an adult, and by that I mean really knitting–always having more than one project going, thinking about knitting when I wasn’t actively knitting, and most of all, stashing–I got back into it with the purchase of Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter’s Magazine.  I spent many happy hours looking at and reading that book, and dreaming of the beautiful lace shawls that I would make.  I’m a bit embarrassed to say that in actuality I only knit one scarf out of the book.  It served me as more of a “gateway” book, really.

I did knit this variation of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Pi shawl, though.  (Instructions for the basic Pi shawl can be found in Shawls and Scarves.)

 

A detail:

 

I made this shawl out of handspun which I purchased on Ebay, before I knew anything about handspun.  It’s not bad yarn, by any means, but it’s alpaca which has a lot of guard hair in it, which makes it pretty rough to the touch.  It’s very warm, though.

Now I own many more lace knitting books, and about a year ago I finished this Faroese shawl out of Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves. 

 

An edging detail:

 

I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in shawl-making at all.  This is the shawl that I wear most, because it’s so warm and substantial, and because it stays on the shoulders better than most shawls.  (A design feature of Faroese shawls.)  The circular shawl above, for instance, tends to slide right off your shoulders if you move at all, which, let’s face it, is pretty hard not to do in everyday life.

Next week:  A discussion of rectangular shawls (or stoles, depending on which word you like better).

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Handsome is as handsome does, Lace it up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.