I haven't been knitting much lace in the last year because of the tremors I had developed and it was difficult to knit intricate patterns. It was just too bothersome to get the needle through the correct stitch. But I mentioned this problem to my doctor and he had a miracle cure: a very low dose of a Beta blocker. Low and behold, the shaking stopped. It's amazing what little inconvenient things can crop up once you've hit 75. Luckily all my ailments are mechanical; no heart, blood pressure, kidney, etc. problems, just plain old arthritis and those darn "essential tremors." They really ought to be renamed "non-essential" since one really doesn't need them.
I am a sucker for Knit-Alongs. So this year, I decided to knit Unikatissima's Advent Calendar. I had two yarns from which to choose, a lace-weight Alpaca and a light fingering hand-spun Shetland/Alpaca. Here are my swatches:
This is the lace-weight Alpaca
Shetland/Alpaca
Since it was a particularly cool day, I chose the Shetland/Alpaca mix. Besides, there are few occasions in my life style where I would benefit from a delicate and elegant shawl.
Day 1 looked like this:
Day 2:
Day 10:
Day 12:
This is the insert in the middle of the scarf to lengthen it to your liking. The nice thing about Susann's patterns is that they are adaptable and one can make them wider, narrower, or knit them with a cotton yarn to make a table runner. I am seriously thinking about knitting her 2014 Advent Calendar as a table runner.
Since it is still December 13, I am now sitting down and knitting the 18 rows, a manageable daily portion.
Knit on, merrily.
I know what you mean about the tremor and beta blocker (prem-something-or-other for me). I'm thinking of giving up knitting classes because it's hard to demo things.
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