I pondered all my choices and decided that I was going to have to find another pattern for the lace that would allow me to finish the shawl without having to purchase more yarn. I have 2700 metres of Ultra on hand and only an idiot couldn't find a way to make that work.
I pulled out a bunch of books with Shetland stitches in them, Barbara Abbey's Knitting Lace, Heirloom Knitting, Lace From the Attic, The Complete Book of Traditional Knitting, Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls, and Knitting Lace, A Workshop and took a good long look through all of them to see if I could find another lace pattern that is Shetland but that is not a repeat of something I have done or is in the pipes for finishing or doing. And it had to be less than 15 rows of knitting, because that is all one skein of lace would allow. I also wanted it to be a pattern that ebbed and flowed as Old Shale does, as Feather and Fan does. It looks so pretty in colour changes when it wa ves softly. I also looked at perhaps just going with a trees border or other straight row pattern that would look fine but might get a bit lost in the colour changes I have in y bag of yarns. My fall back was good old feather and fan, though I really hoped I didn't have to use it.
I kept going back to variations of Old Shale and Crest of the Wave and eventually came up with a variation that met all my criteria.
The pattern is page 5 and is listed as pattern 2 in Sussanna E Lewis Knitted Lace, A Workshop. It is not really traditional. Traditional Shetland lace patterns are generally simple to remember and easy to knit while you are busy. They almost always have a rest row of plain purl. I can remember the stitches by row easy enough, but the different rows, all of which have lace patterning, and what row happens where, not so much. But it does have a wonderful wave to it, and a clarity and an elegance that I quite like. It has the flavour of a feather and fan, but is oh so very different to knit. Very different.
I knew that I had to change my plan for colours too. I had only 1 ball of three different colours so it seemed wise to start with the lightest colour and just fade out to darkest as I knit along. Even this less than 15 row pattern would eat a lot of yarn on the rounds just before the edge goes on. Best to save the colours with two balls of yarn for those long rows.
I started yesterday and am so pleased. I did a row and a half and did the other half row this morning. I took pictures and admired and looked and sighed at the loveliness being created on my needles.
And then I pulled out the skein of yarn to lay it on the work for a good photo. I decided the pull our all the other too and kind of make a bag of the knitting with all the yarn inside.
And that, dear reader is when it all kind of fell apart.
Because this.
See that one shade lighter yarn? That is not the one I am working with. I checked that I had the lightest yarn when I was taking the yarn out. I was quite careful about it. I did not want to have any trouble. But when I was putting the yarn back into the bag, I must have dropped the lightest and kept the second lightest to work with.
What can I say. I think I am going to do housework today. In my house, there is no way to fail doing that.
No comments:
Post a Comment