theraineysisters knitting and so much more

August 30, 2010

From Sally — Letting Go

Filed under: Back Story,Luiza — surly @ 3:24 pm

As Susan mentioned the other day, I just took my baby to college.  (Fortunately, he doesn’t read our blog so I can call him my baby without his knowing.)  We are now officially a bi-coastal family:  Sterling is ensconced at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and we, of course, are in Washington, DC.  It was much harder to leave him than I had expected.  I know that we’ll adjust and if he is happy, we will be, too.  Perhaps what is hard is the feeling that there may never be a coming home to DC to stay.  Nora loves Colorado and I suspect that Sterling will feel very much at home on the west coast.  We’ll see.

Here are a couple of pictures of his first encounter with the Pacific (at Cannon Beach).


Finally, a last shot just before I left town (then back to knitting, I swear):

Le sigh.

I’m also “letting go” of my most recent knitting project, which is a shawl I knit specifically for charity. The charity is The National Inclusion Project. The shawl is Luiza, designed by Jane Araujo. Mine will be auctioned in October as part of the Project’s Champions Gala.

I had trouble getting good photographs of this shawl — not just the color but the beauty of the lace work. But here are a few. (The last shot is probably the most true to color.)

Pre-blocking:

After blocking:


I knit this shawl using Merino Silk Lace fromSweet Georgia Yarns in the Blackberry colorway. I loved the yarn and I loved knitting this shawl. Once I figured out the method to the charts and translated a few idiosyncratic uses of terminology, it was a simple and quick knit. The pattern, including the border, was easy to memorize and just flowed very naturally. I plan to knit another for myself.

It’s a somewhat smaller shawl than I usually knit (the finished dimensions of mine are 30″ deep and 60″ across). It’s easy to enlarge, but alas I had only one skein of yarn. The original was designed for fingering weight; I used lace weight. I added additional pattern repeats (16 flowers total on each side), but would have added more if I’d had a second skein.

I hope Luiza finds a good home, and I hope that Sterling will be happy in his new one.

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