This is the first pattern I ever had published, in the Knitting Pattern-A-Day 2005 calendar (and on my website). I’ve decided I like it better with an extra stitch added at each side, the way I did here, so, add two to the count when casting on. This one used six repeats. I know, the eye is more pleased with odd numbers within patterns, but this leaves you with seven scallops at the bottom and seven columns among the yarnovers, so it works.
Once, when I was quite new at lace knitting, I started an ambitious shawl project in superfine cashmere, thin as sewing thread. It looked terrible, like crumpled tin foil, and I finally just bagged it. It wasn’t till several years later that I pulled it out, rinsed it, and let it dry with the stitches settling down into their natural shape: it was about 6″ long, absolutely beautiful, and would have become a gorgeous piece. But, by that point, not even protected in a ziploc bag, it was bugbitten and broken.
I let that be a lesson to me that yes, lace tends to look like a random mess while you’re knitting it: but you can rinse it, still on the needles (keep those tips dry if you’re using wooden circulars like I do) and spread it out in an approximation of its future blocked self over a white towel or sheet so it won’t absorb any dyes. This is an easy way to get enthused about it, and to be able to show it off a whole lot better if you’re going to be working on it in public. So, to demonstrate here, I got this shawl halfway knitted, rinsed it, and then finished it and snapped the photo so you could see the difference.
But what I did not at all expect is that this fingering-weight yarn with 51 stitches on size 5.5mm needles (9 American) could turn out to be a wedding ring shawl. It helps if it’s a big ring, definitely. Mine’s a 7; this is a ring for which my grandfather drove out onto a reservation in Nevada many decades ago, picked out a stone, and watched the ring being made for my grandmother. I wear it for best occasions and it connects me to the grandfather I never knew before his passing and the grandmother I only barely did before hers. It was created just for them.
As this shawl was created just for…someone who hopefully doesn’t know about this blog…