Diversions

Long before I even knew how to knit lace, I fell in love with laceweight yarn.  I loved how delicate and dainty it was and I meant to make it mine.  All mine.  My stash will tell you I have accomplished this.  It is mine.  

This was the beginning of my significant and much adored lace yarn collection.  It is all Knitpicks Shimmer, Shadow or Alpaca Cloud.  I think I purchased almost all of the blues I could that very first time.  It was almost all sale prices and I had quite simply fallen in love with the colours.  

I don't know if I planned it as I did the purchase or if it happened as I was unpacking the box, but I knew that I was going to use the lovely blues for shawls for each of my sisters and my mom.   After the fact, my mom told me she didn't like wool, so I found an alternate plan for her.

The very large skein of soft gray was purchased with my mom in mind.  It's a double skein of  Handmaiden Sea Silk which I purchased locally, at River City Yarns. That was the first time I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I was paying for a double skein of yarn, but I was having it and expense be darned.  My mom was worth the good stuff.  I still feel this.

All this happened sometime in my first year of knitting and 2017 marks 10 years of knitting so I have had these plans for 10 years. Maybe time to do it?

I am a little reluctant to knit sweaters right now, even considering the next big thing, I am starting to wonder if this might be a good time to immerse myself in shawls.  I have waited till I had time, waited till I had space, waited till I moved, waited, till, for ...and so on.  Shawls would give me everything I am looking for in terms of challenge, maybe more than I am looking for!  It is always time to focus on sweaters, but maybe it is time to focus on this large project too.

So, that explains the pile of books the other day and why they are still on my footstool.

I am on the hunt for the first pattern.  I know that my sisters are not generally shawly people, but I also know they are living in Canada.  Winter is cold and every person can use a good scarf like object at the nape of their neck.  What would be nicer than an airy warm shawl?  I am leaning a bit towards that very popular crescent shape, or possibly a  wide v shape.  

Boo Knits is on my radar and there are some truly stunning things on Knitty.  Twist Collective has some really lovely things too that would work nicely.  And then my books.  I would love to knit something from my books for this project too.  The first thing I thought of was Victorian Lace Today, but the shawl I was thinking of is a rectangle.  Still, that would work with my criteria for a shawl/ neck warmer wear.  Estonian?  Victorian?  Shetland?  Japanese influenced?  There are such lovely things out there for this large, long term project.  How on earth will I choose?

It is a big project.  Four shawls in total.  Certainly doable if I set Christmas as my deadline.  Or not.  Whatever else this diversion is or isn't, it is time to start.

Just a little addendum:  As I was taking yarn out for the photo, I had such fun.  The feel.  The colours.  Such a variety of different textures and colours.  It struck me that though I saw the world in sweaters, I dreamed of lace weight shawls.