A more sane, nay, a more moderate person would've been within the laws of fiber and nature to just go home and unwind. Après Fest requires a cooling off period; perhaps a nice foot soak with some scented oils in a dark room with some candles...
That scenario was NOT the one that played out at Chez Chic after the close of Stitches Midwest. Even after two days of stuffing my head full of new and exciting knitting techniques, even after gabbing my fool head off with new and old friends, even after zooming around the market hall and getting absolutely, thoroughly INTOXICATED with YARNneedlesPATTERNSfellowship, I needed more...
I needed to MAKE Something...
On the way home, while I was driving my little Jeep Wrangler in thick traffic, I became obsessed with the above yarn. Said yarn was not in my car among the new fest fibers; it had been deep stashed for, hmmm, several years after my very first Fiber Frenzy - the TKGA convention that was held in Chicago in 2002. It was slated for socks but was destined to become more, after my brain exploded somewhere in Exhibit Room G, Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.
Who cared if my first flirtation with shawl making ended in a disaster? Why should that experience hold me back? (Hmmm - just because a girl commits the crime of trying to knit (May 29th entry) a 6 foot long stole from Black Slippery Devil Yarn, she should'nt be sentenced to a lifetime sans shoulder coverings SHOULD SHE?)
So, as soon as I got home I found and wound the yarn from the skeins and opened my new book - wrapSTYLE - and started an Evelyn Clark number called "Shetland Triangle". My master plan is to do 1/3 blue and 2/3's orange which I believe wil make an incredibly BOLD but wearable color combination for me to head into FALL.
Three Swatches made over an evening and morning taught me some Lace Making Manners!
FIRST PITFALL: too small of a needle for the stitch pattern.
SECOND PITFALL: pattern was too bumpy and boring even expanded a little with a larger needle size.
THIRD PITFALL: changing the stitch pattern might not be the solution unless you also change the needle size.
I found Ms. Clark's other much loved shawl pattern, the Flower Basket Shawl in my stack of mags, and decided to give it a try instead of the wrapSTYLE pattern. The yarn I am using is a Hemp/Wool blend that is slightly elastic but not enough to do justice to the book pattern. I think the Shetland Shawl in the book was made from super springy yarn and they blocked the bejesus out of it to get the pattern to really open up. The picture makes it look very spirally (which I adored and am now going to have to find a stitch pattern that does this!) but my own swatch showed a dense, more closed-up version.
The stitch pattern used is the classic Shetland Fir Cone - which Barbara Walker warns: "has a tendency to pucker" which it did, badly.
But the Flower Basket stitch has more open spaces and compliments the fiber structure of my yarn better. Here is where I am now, starting the third lower basket on the body. I am going to do 5 baskets out of blue and see where I am at that point before I start the orange.
...to be continued. For the whole shebang read it HERE...
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