My husband and I have an agreement about car travel: he does excellent driving while I manage our audio entertainment, navigate, and find our lodging – oh, and knit, of course. His effort is by far the more challenging and, because he is so good at it, I am relaxed enough to accomplish mine. This year was productive and had a definite theme – shawls.

From Seattle to New Brunswick – Shawl One & Baby Sweater

Our trip across the country to start our vacation always includes stops to visit friends and family. That gives me extra knitting time thanks to added mileage and visiting time. Last year’s pattern (A Girl’s Best Friend by Isabell Kraemer) for the trip home was reprised on the trip out – same pattern, different yarn. I have to admit, this is a rare event. Do a pattern twice? Usually by the time I am done, I am more than done, I am heartily sick of the thing. But not with this one. It is complicated enough to keep you interested but not so endless that you think you will die with it on your needles. I am happy to say the result was exactly as I had hoped.

I also had time to knit a sweater for grandchild #1. He has moved to southern California so it is cotton and bright. It has been a long time since I knit an Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise sweater. So much fun and so quick to knit! The pattern adapts well to various sizes, can be knit in any sort of yarn at all, and is extremely forgiving if one is a new knitter. In fact, it is the second most popular knitting pattern (with over 27,000 projects) on Ravelry.

It did take a lot of searching to find buttons again. I had to stop at 3 fabric stores before I found anything other than a plain, flat button. I ask you, where have all the good button stores gone? I am going to have to cultivate some new sources, I can see that. Sweater for grandchild #2’s first birthday is on my needles and the deadline is looming. I guess I’ll be on the hunt for buttons again soon.

In New Brunswick – Shawl Two

Our little church is situated on the shore surrounded by farm land. With neither a washing machine nor a nearby grocery or hardware store, errands take considerable planning and driving. Knitting needles to the rescue! I recently purchased a fairly unique ball of yarn (Concentric by Hikoo/Skacel) – a gradient, 4-strand, alpaca yarn that slowly changes color as one strand after another shifts to the new shade. The four strands are not twisted so it seems it would make an excellent weaving yarn as well. It is on my list to try.

The shawl pattern I used for this ball (Lieselotte Shawl by Beatrice Perron Dahlen) included an icord bind-off that gives the project a great finish. It also left me engaged in a nail-biting game of yarn chicken. I won the game by two whole yards (see picture to the left)! I find myself pleased with the results – a stunning gradient and soft as soft can be.

Homeward Bound – Shawl Three

Striking for home and trying something new, I put a brioche shawl on needles. Brioche stitch is a method for essentially knitting two interlaced sides of a garment at the same time. It produces a springy fabric and, if done in two colors, two distinctly different looks on the two sides. At first, I cursed my decision because my brioche knitting skills are pretty rudimentary. Or maybe I should say were rudimentary? I have now had several successful mistake fixes, laddering down the stitches to accomplish the fix and avoid frogging multiple rows. My theory is that everyone makes mistakes but experience gives you the tools to fix them. I usually have plenty of opportunity to practice.

The resulting shawl is a bit smaller than I had hoped but it made use of 3 balls of MadelineTosh Merino Light. I have been carting these 3 skeins of yarn around for several years. They belonged together from the start but it was difficult to find something that would allow all 3 to shine. My solution was this pattern: Leaves and Stripes Shawl by Katrin Schubert. I suspect I could have knit this on somewhat larger needles and ended up with a larger shawl, but really the smaller size is appropriate for the lightweight single yarn. I almost like the back side better than the front!

Back Home Again

It would have been nice to be able to use these shawls while traveling but knitting needs finishing. With lace knitting, it is particularly important. What looks like a little scrumble of knitting turns into a pretty piece of clothing with the application of a little water and some pins and blocking wires. those pictures above were all taken when I finally got home to my blocking wires (next year, they will come with me) and our beds. After a good soak in some warm soapy water and a little stretch, the shawls dried to their final shapes. Shawl #1 – a true lace knit out of wool – bloomed to about twice its size and all the lace became, for lack of a better term, lace. Shawl #2 – also lace but knit out of alpaca – didn’t grow as much, but the blocking allowed the lace pattern to show. Shawl #3 – the brioche shawl – needed only light blocking. Too much blocking and it would have lost all its lovely brioche bounce. Three shawls to wrap around a lovely 2.5 months. Time to start planning the next trip!