Monday, April 7, 2008

Progress Report

Well I've been knitting, making mistakes, tinking, knitting, making mistakes, tinking, and knitting again. But I think, my depression is starting to lift and I seem to have less problems following charted patterns. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't follow a written out pattern. I have difficulty understanding how knitters can knit that way. As you all know I am on various lace knitting groups and in each group there are knitters who would like to have the instructions written out. I can understand folks with learning disabilities, but it's not hard to follow a chart and I can see the whole picture in front of me.

Insanity is having four shawls going at this time. The Fisherman's wife has been sidelined for a bit. I made a mistake and have not picked it up since. So now I am afraid to pick it up again. I'm not sure if I marked my place properly. Note to myself: Renate if you make a mistake, fix it then and there. It'll be easier in the long run. Here is what I have going at this time:

Fancy Fullness, a design by Birgit Freyer of www.die-wolllust.de . Her Yahoo group is Knitting-Delight. Her designs are somewhat different from others and, I think, I've figured out what she is doing. This is going to be a triangular shawl with the edging knitted right along with the shawl. Here is a quick picture of the sections so far.


I am using Knit Picks new lace yarn made of 70% Alpaca and 30% Silk. I've just noticed that they carry a new lace yarn made of 70% Merino and 30% silk. I like the mixture of wool and silk better, and another advantage is that the yarn comes in uni colors.

I've also finished the third portion of the Secret of Bad Nauheim. Moni is starting two new KALs this summer. They are called Slow Bee 1 and Slow Bee 2. Both are Yahoo KAL groups. The first one is going to be a Faeroe's type shawl and the second a rectangular stole. They are called slow bees because some folks want more time to knit each section. So if you are interested go over to the groups and sign up. Right away, please. I'd love to see some of my fellow bloggers joining in.
Any idea what the theme of this stole is? Someone on the KAL thinks the pattern depicts flowers. Bad Nauheim does have a park with tens of thousands of roses, but I am leaning more towards columns which are prominent in photos I have seen when googling for Bad Nauheim. Of course I have some other ideas too which I won't mention here. Bad girl, bad girl.

Finally, I continue to knit on the Orkney Pi shawl. Finishing this shawl will take a while, however. It's a pleasurable, but slow knit with 1280 stitches per round.

So have fun with your knitting and "Knit on.!"