theraineysisters knitting and so much more

For some reason, I like to knit shawls in the summer. Maybe it’s because the yarn feels lighter in my lap than a heavy wool sweater does. In one of our recent posts, I showed a picture of this yarn and accompanying beads:

Today I’ll show what I’m working on. Some of you guessed this was destined to become an Aeolian Shawl, which is a very pretty shawl from Knitty. But that’s not what I’m making. At least not yet. I’m currently knitting the River Run shawl from a kit I bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival from Just Our Yarn. (I can’t find a photograph of the finished shawl to show you, so you’ll have to wait.)

Lace in progress never looks all that great, but here’s a photo anyway:

The photograph doesn’t really do justice to the richness of the yarn’s color or to its beautiful silk-like sheen. It really is gorgeous yarn. It’s Almaza, which is tencel, not silk. The idea of knitting with tencel gave me pause — but I couldn’t resist the color. It’s a bit tricky to work with. It’s very slippery, and I don’t think it will have much stretch in blocking so I’m knitting it a little more loosely than I ordinarily would so that the openness of the lace pattern will be knitted in rather than blocked out (if that makes sense).

It’s a fairly simple and easy lace pattern because it’s repetitious and very regular. I don’t need any markers to show pattern repeats because of the regularity and because the beads themselves serve as markers.

Simplicity doesn’t mean one can’t make mistakes, though. Somehow, I frakked up one of my yarnovers. See the odd-looking shape in the middle?

Now, I kept noticing it and thinking I’d “deal” with it later. Finally, I realized that it wasn’t going to go away. By that time, I had knitted another 40+ rows. It was late at night and so of course that seemed the perfect time to rip back forty rows. Was I tired? Check. Was it dark? Check. Had I had at least one glass of wine? Check. Yes — the perfect time to rip back forty rows of lace.

After I ripped it back, I had a few moments of panic. It wasn’t quite as easy to ladder back up the yarnovers as I assumed it would be. I felt like Bones in that one Star Trek episode in which he’s transplanting Spock’s brain and forgets how everything is connected partway through. Fortunately, the shawl and I both survived.

It still looks slightly funky, but I’ll even out the yarnovers when I block it. Whew.