I would hate to disappoint my loyal fans (hee)! So here's a progress report, at long last. I've been happily knitting away on my "Sallie June" Faroese shawl, or at least I was knitting away on it until about a week ago (more on that below). Here's a photo of the shawl in progress:
It's amazing to me how undistinguished lace looks while it's being knitted. Compared to how it looks once blocked (or dressed), that is. It's almost like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the difference the dressing makes.
I decided that I wanted to go ahead and finish my earlier pink prototype shawl so that I could see if there were any problems with the edging charts. I also wanted to free up my 60" Addi turbo needle so that the "Sallie June" can make that leap when it needs to.
So I began figuring out the crochet loop bind-off (this is an element straight from the Kinzel book). This shawl is bound off like a lot of doilies, after being knit to the end (in other words, the edging is part of the shawl, not knitted sideways and joined to the shawl). After doing some practice loops, I decided that the loops as written were too long (too loopy?) in this yarn, and that 5 chains instead of 9 chains between each three-stitch bind-off would work better. So I swatched, and blocked, and I think I was right. I don't know how much you can tell from the photo. I can also see that I need to block the leaves more vertically so that they don't spread out quite so much width wise.
Another detail, here is photo of the mesh that compromises an entire diamond right before the leaves of the edging, and also forms the bottom portion of each of the diamonds in the regular pattern. Kinzel calls this pattern "ladybird" mesh, though I haven't been able to find either that name or the mesh itself in any of my other stitch books. At least not so far.
I have gotten most of my lace books out and have been having a high old time going through them. This always gives me lots of new ideas, which can become problematic. But at the moment I've needed other things to think about. I have a pinched nerve in my neck, and it radiates into my left shoulder and arm. Because I do so much of the control of my stitches with my left thumb and forefinger, I've not been letting myself knit on this shawl while I've been under the weather. It would be SO easy to have my hand slip and pull a dozen or so stitches off the needle. I have to be careful of that anyway, and I've recovered from a small accident or two already.
So while I rest (and take too many pain pills), I have been knitting on some socks and missing my lace! I'm slowly feeling better, and I hope that by the weekend, I can be knitting on my shawl again!
Listening to: The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King, read by Jenny Sterlin. I am SO enjoying this, having just discovered the series!
