Regress as Progress

I'm making progress on the Highland Triangle Shawl, but sometimes, much to my chagrin, progress means regress.

This shawl is patterned in three sections -- a middle triangle, an inner edging and an outer edging. I've finished the inner body of the shawl and am working on the inner edging, which is the widest part. Remember, each row has two more stitches than the one which precedes it.

I was knitting along on the inner edging (lace pattern) when I looked down and saw that there was a mistake -- about 7 or 8 inches wide -- which caused that section of the edging to be off. It wasn't the whole edging, but just this section. The mistake was about 3 inches back from the working edge -- 10 or so rows. I tried to drop a stitch and see if I could fix it that way, but it was no good.

RIP.

I had to rip out 10 or 12 rows -- a total of over 2,300 stitches. I'm reknitting it now, but it has been a let down, to make that much progress and then take it out.

I knew that even if I could fix the section forward from when I noticed the mistake, I would always see it -- and would become the only thing I would see about the shawl. My first highland triangle shawl has a one row mistake in the edging on one side of the triangle, and it always ALWAYS jumps out at me.

So, regress, but progress. Mistake is gone. And maybe that is one of the great things about knitting. We can erase the mistakes.

A new project; an old pattern

I knew that I would do it. I told myself that if I had willpower, I could avoid it, but I didn't even fool myself.

I ordered 11 skeins of Merino Style from Knitpicks (Hollyberry colorway) in order to knit a second Highland Triangle Shawl.

Once I finished Steve's shawl, I picked up my jaywalker socks again, with the hopes of completing the second sock. As I worked on it, I decided on the Highland Triangle, and ordered the yarn. I knew that I would set the sock aside when the new yarn arrived, and even though I tried to convince myself that I could finish one project before starting the next, on the day the yarn arrived, I cast on. Oh, well.

In one photo the very beginnings of the new shawl is laying on my original shawl. Very much a beginning. I have more done now, but a long way to go.

Specifics:
Pattern: Highland Triangle Shawl from Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle
Yarn: Knitpicks Merino Style in hollyberry
Needles: US size 8, Knitpicks options (metal)

By the way, I ordered a set of the new acrylic Knitpicks needles. They are interesting, and I have imagine I would like them with the right yarn, but I wanted something "slicker" with this yarn, so I went with the metal. It's kind of useful, having my choice of metal, wood and acrylic.

End of a Web Site

For a couple of years -- 2005, 2006 -- I used a Geocities site as a companion to the blog. It was a web site with pages devoted to completed projects -- kind of an online knitting journal. It is a little too much to do, and I haven't added anything to it since 2006. I've been using the blog as a journal since then, taking care to have a "finished object" post for each completed project.

That was fine. The web site was still linked to the blog, so references to it still worked. Unfortunately, Geocities is closing down its free sites. I could pay for a site, but I don't want to do that, so I spent the day moving information from the webs site to the blog, updating links, and organizing.

While I was at it, I added tags to older posts. All finished objects can now be accessed from the sidebar -- either in the year they were completed or by the type of project it is.

Bleh. I'm tired!

Goodbye, Sandpiper Knits . com. Hello, organized blog.

Steve's Shawl

Steve's mother died early last Sunday morning. She has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, and on Sunday she just drifted away. We had been expecting this outcome for a few months, so since May, I have been working on a Prayer Shawl for him.

In my head, I saw his shawl as symbolic of the beach -- a place a peace -- because I wanted his shawl to say "peace" to him, and to remind him of quiet walks on the beach, as well as the presence of God in his life.

The shawl is rectangular (about 80 x 27 inches) and is knit on the bias. I started with one stitch and increased each row on one end, knitting front and back on the second to last stitch of the row and the second stitch on the next row. I continued this pattern until the triangle gave me the width I wanted, and then, still doing the increases, I started decreases on the opposite end of the rows -- knitting the third and second stitches to the last in the row together as well as slipping and knitting together the second and third stitches at the beginning of the next row. When it was long enough, I stopped doing the increases and kept decreasing until I was back to one stitch.

Two-thirds of the shawl is blue (Araucania Nature Wool Solids), but isn't solid. There are light and dark values of blue in the yarn, so the blue section looks a little like waves and water. The sand is Patons Classic Wool in Natural Mix. There is a surf line, which is a cream colored wool (two rows). I knit it with US size 11, harmony circle needles from Knitpicks.

Sewn to the sand are seashell charm. There is one in the picture to the left, although it is in shadow and is hard to see. On one corner are three charms -- cross with alpha fish (faith), anchor (hope) and heart (love).

Beach Yarn

While we were at the beach in July, I went to Island Knits yarn shop in Pawley Island, South Carolina. And, yes, there was some stash enhancement.

The black yarn in the first picture is VERY soft. It is from the Plymouth Yarn Company and is called Buckingham. It is 80% Baby Alpaca and 20% Silk. I found it with her sock yarns, but I think it would also make a really pretty scarf, and in fact she gave me a free lace scarf pattern when I bought the yarn. The color number is 500.

The next yarn is from the Ester Bitran yarn company and is called Talinay. It is a bulky weight wool yarn. She also gave me a scarf pattern with this one. I liked the model she had in the shop, so I'm anxious to crank out this scarf. It is color 220 -- tan, pink, blue and brown. It probably isn't a colorway that I would have chosen for myself, but I imagine it as a gift.

The third yarn is a sock yarn from Araucania Yarns called Itata Multy. It is 70% superwash wool, 15% silk and 15% bamboo. The colorway is 1002, and it is a mix of blue, purple and green. There are 430 yards in the skein.

Updates

How about some updates?

First: Today is the last day of Project Spectrum -- East. I've had trouble finding things that are yellow. When I was focused on taking pictures, everything was green. I did find a patch of yellow flowers in the Bob Evan's parking lot as I was waiting for my carpool ride to arrive.

Second: Here's another image of my Jaywalker sock. I still haven't started the second sock because...

Third: I've been working on a mystery project which will eventually be revealed. I hope not for a long time, but I imagine eventually.

Wood

Walking in the park the other day, I took lots of photos. Here are some of them centering around the "wood" aspect of Project Spectrum.