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!”

(By the way, they posted about this correction in the Ravelry group but did not send out an email for this error as they did for the previous error in the cast-on. So if you downloaded the first clue within about 14 hours of it being initially posted, you need to download it again to get the corrected pattern. The latest pattern as I write this says “updated 2:04pm 1/10/10 at the bottom of each page.)

Anyhow, I sat down to tink back and discovered my work was pretty much, well, un-tink-able. The combination of the somewhat “sticky” yarn — I was using the Luxe, which is a wool/silk blend — with the lace cast-on used in the pattern meant I had to suck it up and pull it off the needles to rip it out completely.

At that point I lost interest.

I was planning on doing this knit-along purely for entertainment, and I loathe ripping out, so I decided to set it aside until such point as the pattern is complete. Hopefully all errors will be caught by then.

(There was a question in the comments about the lack of beads on my cast-on — I was doing the unbeaded version as I’m not a big fan of beaded knitting.)

Anyhow, I conveniently had a draft pattern of one of my own designs waiting in the wings, so I dug out the yarn I’d bought for it and cast on something different.

The yarn is Madeline Tosh sock yarn in the “Baltic” colorway. I believe made a brief appearance on my blog after I purchased it a couple of weeks ago.

And the pattern is going to be for a shawlette. I seem to be on a shawlette kick lately, don’t I?

Speaking of shawlettes, my Aestlight accompanied me to work today. I wore it over my coat like a big scarf — this is one of my favorite uses for shawls. It was pretty darn cold today so I was happy to have it!

Lucy sez:

“Darn right it was pretty darn cold today! It’s a good thing you got me this sheepskin!

In the comments Brit observed:

It seems that progress on the True Love stole is going more slowly than on your last two shawls.  Is that because you aren’t finding as much time to knit?  Or is it because it is a difficult pattern?

I was wondering when someone would ask me why the heck it is taking me so long to knit this baby.

The reason is the former, not the latter. While this stole is heavily patterned, there really are no tricky bits to it. The lace stitches consist only of yarnovers, k2tog, and a sl1 k2tog psso double decrease. Every row is knit. There is patterning on every row, but that just makes it more entertaining to knit, as far as I’m concerned.

And each row can be completed pretty quickly. Because it is a stole, it is not extremely wide, so I can whack out a row in a few minutes.

Getting that few minutes is the problem. I have had a whole lot of impediments to knitting lately, so progress has been almost non-existent. Still, I got a nice chunk of knitting time in yesterday afternoon, so that was encouraging.

And my second sock is almost done. I will hopefully finish it tomorrow on the commute. As soon as it is done, the stole will accompany me as commuter knitting, so I can get a few more rows knit every day.

Stay tuned for further developments . . .

Lucy sez:

“Just finish my white blankie, willya?”

I love that the days are getting noticeably shorter. It gives me hope that the horror that is summer will end. Eventually.

However, knitting with hot pink laceweight makes everything better. See?

My pink blob is growing and starting to look like something.

Here is the center back:

And here is one side:

As I mentioned, I am knitting this from the top down. Faroese shawls have an extra bit of shaping on the shoulders to ensure that they stay in place when being worn. I achieved this extra oomph of shawl by extra increases on the first however many rows it was.

I can’t wait til this is long enough to try on.

For my next trick, I might doodle up a Faroese shawl from the bottom up. And in a heavier yarn.

Lucy Sez:

“The a/c makes me happy!”

Eeeek! Run! Run!

That photo is slightly lighter than it is in reality.

Here’s a close-up that’s slightly darker than it actually is:

So if you look at both photos and squint, you might get an idea of the actual color.

I’m knitting along, knitting along. And knitting along. I’m close to 600 stitches per round now.

Three Bags Full

Check out these adorable bags:

A little project bag and matching accessory pouch from my friend Michele’s etsy shop, Three Bags Full. I love the fabric!

Michele’s bags are just beautifully made, and she uses the most adorable fabrics.

Check out the kitty bead on the zipper pull.

I also love that the project bag has a pocket inside it.

Michele also does custom work — I’ve tasked her with creating the ultimate lace knitting tote bag for me.

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who bought a copy of my Exonumist’s Shawl pattern on it’s first day. I can’t wait to see your shawls in progress!

I did indeed make a “Patterns for Sale” page — it is linked to from a new tab up at the top of the blog.

Lucy Sez

Well, Lucy doesn’t say anything because she is fast asleep, worn out from showing off for the blog over the past few days. I gave her the day off.