Exhibit A:

I received a copy of Haapsalu Shawl, A Knitted Lace Tradition from Estonia. I purchased my copy from The Needle Arts Book Shop (here’s the link to the book for sale there). They are lovely to deal with — wonderful customer service and fast shipping.

The book is magnificent. Yeah, it’s expensive, but if you are into lace, I think it is worth every penny. It’s about the history of Estonian lace knitting. There are many many great photographs and illustrations. While there are no patterns for knitting shawls, there is a lot of explanation of how the traditional shawls are constructed and a huge stitch dictionary of the lace stitches used. Wow. Just . . . wow.

Exhibit B:

Speaking of wow, you probably know that our own dear Rachael has published her first novel, How to Knit a Love Song.

I call her “our” Rachael because she is a member of the knit-blog family. I’ve been reading her blog forever (I remember when it was called “My Glass House”). She is one of the “old-school” knit-bloggers from way back when there were only a handful of us.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of times and can assure you that Rachael is as delightful and genuine in person as she is on her blog.

So you’ll excuse me, I hope, for being a little misty on the occasion of her first book coming out. I remember back when she was an aspiring writer and I’m so proud of her and so freaking happy to see her well-deserved success.

Rachael very kindly signed a copy for me and sent it to me (and I’ll confess to you that I also bought the Kindle edition so I can read it on the go as well). I’ve started reading it and I’m loving it.

Rachael has offered a second copy to one of my readers. And I’m betting if we ask nice, she’ll sign it, too. If you’d like to be entered into the drawing for How to Knit a Love Song, leave a comment to this entry by 4:00pm Eastern time this Thursday, March 11. The Random Number Generator will select a lucky recipient.

Lucy sez:

“Hey, Digit’s momma wrote this book!”

Like Miss Woodhouse, it’s a “more than a triangle shawl.” You work double the increases on the outer edges as you do on the inner edges to get this shape.

In the photo of my shawl in progress yesterday, you may have noticed that I have the pattern repeats marked with stitchmarkers. I have since removed the markers.

Most of the time, I prefer to knit lace without stitchmarkers. I put them in this project, because I took it with me to work on at the yarn shop on Monday. I knew I’d be talking to people while knitting, picking it up and putting it down mid-row, etc. In that scenario, I’m happier having markers to keep me on track.

But when I’m knitting in solitude (and this is how most of my knitting is done), I’m happier without the markers. I find that for me, they get in the way of the “big picture” of the lace. I also find it annoying to have to slip them as I knit. Even more annoying — when a marker is in the middle of a maneuver that requires that I move the marker one stitch to the left or right. Know what I mean?

Take a look at this chart:

This is an all-over lace pattern that has a 6-stitch repeat, which is shown on the chart with dotted lines. The even-numbered rows are not shown, because they are all simply purled.

Note that on Row 5 of the chart, the beginning of the repeat comes in-between a yarn-over and a double decrease (sl 1, k2tog, psso).

Okay, you start working Row 5 — you have three stitches before your first repeat marker, right? The chart tells you to knit 2, yarn-over before the marker. But you still have 1 stitch left before the marker. That’s because the yarn-over makes your third stitch before the marker, and that 1 stitch is part of the double decrease on the other side of the marker — that “sl 1, k2tog, psso” maneuver takes up only 1 stitch on the chart, because there is a yarn-over on each side of it there to compensate for those 2 stitches that are decreased. But because it is in the middle of a pattern repeat, you have to move your danged stitchmarker one stitch to the right before every repeat.

Of course, if you think ahead, you can make this move on Row 4 — as you purl across move each marker one stitch to the left (left instead of right because you are on the back side of the work, going in the opposite direction).

Still, I prefer to do away withe the markers entirely.

Lucy sez:

“I’ve got my eye on you!”

This morning Miss Lucy had her annual check-up and shots (ouchies!) — the vet said she is in great health.

And this afternoon I spent a few hours over at fibre space hanging out with a lot of fun knitters. There might have been some stash enhancement too.

My three shawlettes, Argus, Seaside, and Miss Woodhouse, had so much fun that they are going to stay in the shop for a while. So if you didn’t have a chance to stop by and see them today, they’ll be in the shop for a while. And you can purchase the patterns there as well.

Here is an Argus knit by Beth, in a heavier yarn on a larger needle.

It makes a nice larger shawl, I think!

How if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go relax.

Lucy sez:

“I was a good girl at the vet’s today!.”

Blocked she is 66″ across the top, 25″ down the center back.

I used a size 6 (4mm) needle and one skein of MadelineTosh Tosh Sock in the “Oak B” colorway with 24 grams left over.

Expect a pattern presently.

Lucy is beside herself with excitement.

Excitement is in the air. Lucy can hardly contain herself — see?

Which of these two yarns do you think I’ll use for my next shawl? (They are both Madelinetosh Tosh Sock.)

When I finished the body of it and looked at the edging chart, I decided I really didn’t care for the pattern as written, so I subbed my own edging. It’s actually the edging I winkled together for The Exonumist’s Shawl (Ravelry link).

Before blocking, my Aestlight had a wingspan of 54 inches and measured 22 inches down the center back.

After blocking, its wingspan increased to a whopping 84 inches and the length grew to 36″ down the center back.

It looks a little lopsided in the blocking photo — that’s due to the angle. After crawling around on my hands and knees to pin it out and adjust it I felt a bit woozy and was disinclined to stand on a chair to achieve a proper bird’s-eye shot.

I made the larger size from the pattern and it used just over 1.5 skeins of Dragonfly Fibers Dragon Sock.

It’ll no doubt shrink a little after I unpin it, because I’ve stretched it out to within an inch of its life.

And a couple of minutes past midnight last night, I started the cast-on for the Enchanted Wood Shawl.

But I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

New Book

Thanks for all your kind comments about my upcoming book. I’m so pleased that so many of you have pre-ordered it! I do hope you are going to love it as much as I do!

For those of you who were concerned because there are no photos of Lucy in the book, rest assured that she is not being ignored. In fact, she has been immortalized by a famous painter and her likeness is where it belongs, in a museum, where she can be admired by millions.

See?

Lucy Sez:

“No comment.”

I finally made it to the Bird’s Eye Lace portion of the Aestlight Shawl.

I would have made more progress had I not done something stupid halfway through the first repeat. As I knit I realized that the holes in the pattern weren’t lining up properly, so I had to backtrack and see where I had messed up. I’d dropped the second yarnover on one of the motifs so I was off by one stitch. I managed to repair it without having to rip back, so all’s well that ends well!

I’m trying to time the completion of this shawl to coincide with the start of the Enchanted Wood Knit-Along. I’m too lazy to read the posts in the Ravelry group, but L-B tells me that the first clue will be emailed to us just after midnight this Saturday night.

I guess I could wind up some of my yarn in preparation.

But at the moment I’m too distracted to even think about such mundane tasks. Look what I got today:

On preview copy of my new book Toe-Up Socks For Everybody, which is coming out on March 23rd. I am very very excited but Lucy doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it, does she?

Bonus shot — the back cover!

Lucy seems a bit more interested — I guess she likes colorwork socks better than lace.

I am woefully short on knitting progress today. I’m working on something unbloggable as my commuter project, and I did very little work on my Aestlight Shawl last night.

I did do the first row of the lace, though.

Because I have little knitting progress to report, allow me to distract you with a birthday gift I received, from the very thoughtful and generous Anne Marie in Philly:

This is a lovely quilted knitting bag that Anne Marie had made especially for me for my birthday! (Anne Marie sure knows what my favorite color is )

The bag is from My Sister’s Bags, and I love it. Thank you, Anne Marie!

But all is not doom and gloom, for I have finished the garter stitch triangle that makes up the center portion of the Aestlight Shawl, and picked up the stitches around that triangle.

I am now ready to commence the fun portion.

From the comments, some questions.

Annette asked:

I note that you sometimes use superwash wool in your shawls. I’ve always thought that superwash wool, or wool combined with synthetic fibers, does not hold the blocking well. So, I tend to shy away from that combo. What’s your opinion?

I’ve made a lot of lace pieces from superwash wool, and have never had any issues with blocking. I tend not to use synthetics, so can’t offer any opinion there.

A number of you have asked what I do with all the shawls I wear. Well, I either shred them or burn them.

No, just kidding. Some I give away, and some I keep and wear. As simple as that.

And several of you have asked what Lucy’s pillow says. Here you go:

Lucy agrees completely.