Sunday, 16. July 2006
Sweet, slow days.
Dont you love those too?
The sweet, slow days of summer, when the sun beats down and you sit and talk, sip cool water and knit slowly, put the knitting away and just enjoy the sun.
Days like these have been mine for the last week, and there are many more to come as summer rolls on and the family moves on to the summer cottage.
At the scout camp, I have not knitted many a stitch - a swatch in "Deep Sea" 8/2 Kauni is all I have done.

Nevertheless, the Rainbow Kauni leftovers were knitted into a shawl/scarf - I thought I was knitting a small slightly lopsided triangle shawl, but I had underestimated Myrna Stahmans increases when knitting her "Faroese-shaped Shawl" from Knitter's best: Shawls and Scarves.
I have knitted regular faroese shawl(s) before, but I was really caught with my pants down at the massive increases Myrna Stahman comes up with.
(What is up with her "Designing" anyways? "My love of lace induced me to switch from Garter-lace to stockinette". What is wrong with Garter-lace in a shawl-type that was designed to work with a square type of stitching (garter)? All stitches have their space in room and time.)


Look, it is a Flutterby Shawl! And in a custom colourway, too!

Stats:

Yarn: Kauni "Rainbow", two almost-repeats left over from my Rainbow Pi shawl. I started with the larger one at the neck edge, and switched to the smaller one, reversing the repeat as I did so to create the illusion of a continuous colour-flow - it almost worked, there is a tiny bit orange in the middle.

Pattern: "Faroese-style Lace" by Myrna Stahman, in the book "Knitter's Best of Shawls and Scarves".

Needles: Holz and Stein, 5mm. Bought on the Faroese Islands when my mother and I went on a shawl-knitting frenzy - I had brought a 5mm in another project and felt really bad that I was able to move my project to a thread and my mother was sitting without needles, so I walked into a (high-end) yarnshop and asked for "5mm needles, as long as you have them". I got 40 cm needles! :-o. My mother did cast on and knit the whole shawl on it (600 stiches), but we never cease to laugh about it every time one of us use these needles.

Thoughts on the pattern: Well-written. Maybe a bit overzealous on the increases, but well... To each their own. I love traditional things, so this shawl does not "do" it for me, seeing as it is something traditional modified into something that only passingly resembles the original. I still dont remember why I chose this pattern... Maybe because my fingers were itching to start?
I *love* the seed stitch borders! I loved them so much that I chose to add a seed stitch edging on the lower side instead of the large edging on the original shawl. It looks so neat.

This shawl will probably join the Guardsman and the Polar Bear in the "Donation" basket. Plus I feel so good about using up a left-over :)

Have a really nice day!

Lene

PS: Please dont mind the p*rn ads in the sidebar - I can do nothing about them, except for hoping they will go away soon :)