Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

During the weekend I finished a shawl. This is White Lotus by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer. The yarn is Colinton 3000, which is 100% fine kid mohair. The yarn, pattern, and beads were sold as a kit. The pattern is well-written, and includes both charts and written-out instructions. The lace pattern is a 22-stitch wide by 12-row tall repeat. For all but the final repeat, every 12 rows adds half a motif on each side of the shawl, which accounts for the almost trapezoidal shawl shape as well as the half-drop arrangement of the motifs. The chart has a thick vertical line indicating both the beginning of a motif its center. For this pattern, I strongly advise two colors of stitch markers. The markers that are the centers on one repeat will be the edges on the next, with the sole exception of the final repeat. I did not want to swatch, so I just grabbed my 3.5mm / US 4 Kollage square needle and cast on using the surprisingly stretchy slip-knot cast on by Jeny Staiman. You can see her video...

Some days the gremlins just get in things and muck them up. At least, I have to figure that's what happened to a particular pattern in Victorian Lace Today . This is a gorgeous coffee table lace book. I sometimes refer to it as the lace porn book, because it makes you want to drop everything, even socks, and go knit lace. The samples were modeled and photographed at an English estate, Belton Manor House, as well as some other locations around Cambridge. And the projects are based on Victorian-era knitting patterns. So, it's all beautiful and all good. My friend Becky sent me an e-mail over the weekend. She was having a little trouble with the Dolphin Lace scarf on pages 106-107; and could I take a look at it and give her some helpful hints? I started by going to the XRX website to look up the errata. Yes, there are errata for Victorian Lace Today . So I downloaded those. Hmmm. Not as helpful as I'd hoped. In fact, I didn't see anything indicating a problem with the...

Today is the due date for entries for the Claudia Hand Painted Yarn Shawl the Love contest. For me, this was a great excuse to indulge in some linen yarn. I had heard great things about linen. For one, it likes being thrown through the washer and dryer. I've seen in person the Flounce duo skirt from Gwen Bortner's Entrée to Entrelac . Linen has some life to it, so a skirt or shawl will have a lot of sassy movement! I was glad to have an excuse to play. I started by shopping for the yarn. The Whole Nine Yarns did have some, but only in half a dozen colors. Eat.Sleep.Knit carries the full line of colors. And I decided to work outside my comfort zone by choosing brown. In the end, I found two mismatched dye lots of "copper pennies" and a light-brown named "honey." I must admit that although I'm not a big fan of brown, "copper pennies" is a pretty colorway in either its dark or light incarnation. And brown can be a nice change-up from the basic n...