This shawlette can be knit from one 100-gram skein of sock yarn and when blocked measures approximately 56” across the top (wingspan) and 25” down the center back.

This pattern is perfect for a beginner knitter who wants to knit lace. The pattern is written in great detail and spells out everything you need to know. The lace is charted in 4 relatively simple charts that are easy to follow.

It is knit from fingering rather than laceweight yarn, which is much easier for a lace newbie to execute. The stitches used are knit and purl, and a few simple lace techniques – yarnover, knit 2 together, and ssk, and sl1 k2tog, psso (which are explained in the pattern).

And now I’m working on another shawlette, this one yet to be named.

The yarn is Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in the “Oak B” colorway, on a U.S. size 6 needle.

Lucy is working on her nap technique.

Remind me of those goals when I finish it and it’s hideously complex and takes 1200 yards to complete, okay?

Excuses, Excuses

Before I show you my progress pic for said shawlette, you have to listen to my excuses for why I haven’t made much progress.

I had a couple of errands to run after work yesterday, so was late getting home. One of the errands was at the grocery store, where the cashier seemed unable to scan the items that the woman in line in front of me was purchasing, so he took each item, one at a time, back into the store to check the price on the shelf, and keyed each one in manually. One at a time. So much for multi-tasking. He did not call for help until he completed that transaction and discovered he couldn’t start a new transaction for me. The manager came over, and pressed a few buttons and all was well. But that took a good half hour.

I did, however, have a nice conversation about clementines with the woman in line behind me.

And I stopped knitting by 7pm because I was tired. So there.

Okay, here’s my progress pic.

No, I’m not writing a shawlette book. Or a shawl book.

There was a question in the comments about what kind of needles I use for lace — I have been using Addi Turbo Lace needles almost exclusively for lace. I love ‘em

And another question — do I ever get wrist pain from knitting so much. I almost never do, because I tend to take a lot of breaks when knitting. When I am knitting at home,. I am doing so in front of my computer. I’ve got my email and Plurk (my favorite social network) open. So when I get an email, I stop and read it. When one of my friends posts to Plurk, I stop and read it.So, lots of breaks!

Speaking of Social Networks

I keep meaning to say this and I keep forgetting. If you send me a friend request on Facebook, please just mention in the request that you are a knitter or something like that. If I get a request from someone I don’t know, we have no mutual friends, and I can’t tell from the profile if that person is a knitter, I ignore it.

Lucy Sez

“Hey – why am I not on Facebook?”

Next she’ll want her own computer.

And here it is blocking:

And being modeled by Gwendolyn:

I used a 150-gram skein of Sea Silk, and worked an extra five repeats of the main body pattern. I estimated well, because this is what I had left after binding off:

Fifteen grams of yarn!

Several of you asked what “nupps” are. Here is a close-up of the nupps:

Nupps are little mini-bobbles. These are worked by doing a k1, yo, k1, yo, k1 all in one stitch on the right side, and purling 5 together on the wrong side. They give some people fits because of the purling 5 together, but because I’m a fairly loose knitter, I don’t have much of a problem doing that. It helps to have a really pointy needle!

Here’s my new work-in-progress:

This is the start of an Aestlight Shawl, which I am making from Dragonfly Fibers Dragon Sock in the “Starry Night” colorway.

Thank you!

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes you all sent me — in the comments here, on Ravelry, on Facebook, and on Plurk. I had a great day. It almost makes up for getting older.

Lucy rang in the New Year in the manner in which she plans to continue for the rest of the winter:

As some of you guessed, it is a Swallowtail Shawl.

I’m using Hand Maiden Sea Silk, in the Rose colorway, on a U.S. 5 (3.75mm) needle. I’ve got a 150-gram skein (600 meters), so I’ll be sizing this up from the pattern so as to make use of my extra yarn. The laceweight version of the pattern calls for 400 meters. It also suggests a U.s. size 4 needle. I went up a needle size because Sea Silk is a slightly heavier laceweight.

Now I must get back to it. Lucy has very handsomely offered to entertain you by striking a cute pose:

Look at those cute little legs!

I bought two skeins of this somewhere along the way and rediscovered it in my stash room recently.

Here’s what I’m knitting from it:

It’s a shawl, and it’s another different shape. It’s based on a hexagonal shawl, where the shaping is done in 6 wedges that form a circle. I didn’t want to do another circular shawl, so I am doing fewer wedges and knitting back and forth instead of in the round. I didn’t want to do a half circle — I wanted it a bit bigger than that. So I decided on 4 wedges.

Here is a close-up of one wedge:

So far, I am loving this. The yarn is fabulous. I am particularly fond of wool/silk blends and this one is a keeper. I’m knitting it on a US size 6 (4mm) needle and love the look of it.

The pattern is my own, winkled together out of my fevered brain. I created a wedge chart in Excel and just started dropping yarnovers and decreases into it. I’ve revised it a couple of times so far as I knit, and may continue to do so.

Because it is 4 out of 6 wedges that make up a circle, it’s a Two-Thirds Shawl.

And that may become the final name of the pattern.

Meanwhile, Lucy is just lounging around. Ah, the life of a cat!

“as an ook cometh of a litel spyr”

Did I ever tell you I used to be able to read (and to a certain extent speak) Middle English? And no, it wasn’t during the Middle Ages, it was during graduate school. Which was almost as far back as the Middle Ages.

But I digress.

Behold the little edging:

This is the beginning of a shetland-style rectangular shawl. I am knitting it from Jojoland 2-ply cashmere, which is a laceweight with 400 yards per 50-gram skein.

I love rectangular shawls, but I hate knitting on the edging afterward. Miles and miles of mind-numbing edging — arrrgh!

So I’m employing a mitered-corner technique here.

You start by knitting the bottom left corner — do a provisional cast on and knit the corner using short rows. Then you knit across the bottom border in as many repeats as you need, and do another short row corner for the bottom right. Turn your work, work across those live stitches, pick up stitches along the straight edge of the border repeats you worked, then undo your provisional cast-on and work across those stitches, and Bob’s your uncle!

Here is the etymology of “Bob’s your uncle.”)

Now you are ready to work back and forth across the shawl, working the border along with the body of your shawl. When you get to the top, you do a similar maneuver — work a short row corner, work a border across the top of the body stitches, attaching the border as you work, then work the last corner.

Easy as pie!

Well, not easy as pie to figure out. At least not for me. It took me a bit of winkling to get the corners to work properly.

The shawl is worked in garter stitch and has lace patterning on both right and wrong sides, so that it is continually entertaining to knit. I’m using a US size 3 (3.25mm) needle, so it is a bit slow going. The unblocked gauge is 6 stitches and 8 rows to the inch.

How long will I make it? I have a total of 1600 yards of the yarn, so I’ll either knit until it looks long enough, or til I run out of yarn.

Lucy is no doubt lost in thought — the coming delights of a cashmere kitty blanket!

When I get a chance, I’ll write up this pattern and post it as a freebie. I think I’ll call it “A Finer Peace.” Why? Because it is knit with fingering weight yarn instead of sportweight, which is what the original pattern is written for. Yes, I do crack myself up on a regular basis.

In other news, I started yet another experimental circular shawl, this one in Ella Rae Lace Merino. The colorway is “The Deep End.”

The name of this yarn is somewhat misleading, as it closer to fingering weight than laceweight. It’s a 100 gram skein with 460 yards per skein and the stated gauge is 29 stitches and 37 rows to 4 inches on a US 3 (3.25mm) needle. Using a size 0 (2mm) I expect I’d get my usual 8 stitches per inch for socks.

But I’m knitting lace, and using a US 4 (3.5mm) needle.

So far, all is well. No leaching of dye, no atrocities. The yarn is quite nice, in fact!

Okay, back to the couch for me. I still can’t shake this viral crud that took hold of me over a week ago, so I have an afternoon of doing very little planned.

Lucy has an afternoon of looking adorable planned.