This week I cast on for a cardigan for my daughter. I had this really lovely yarn from Turtlepurl – a light fingering MCN called Pillow Talk – that I have been meaning to use for a sweater for her, but she was very adamant that cardigans are better than sweaters. So a cardigan it is. Since the yarn is a light fingering, I decided to use 2.75 mm needles, which shows the lace pattern well, and still gives definition to the stockinette portion of the cardigan.
The bottom of the cardigan has three rows of lacy hearts. The hearts will also continue up the front along the opening. I haven’t quite decided what to do about the sleeves yet, but lacy cuffs and set in sleeves are the most likely option.
Pillow talk is really nice to work with, and the colour is a collection of different reds (of the colder variety), shifting from lighter reds to deep burgundy. I actually considered using this yarn for the Eyjafjallajökull Shawl as well, since the reds could also have made a good volcano.
Monday was the first knitting guild meeting for the season. I had made plans to meet up with Natalie Servant beforehand and we had a lovely Greek dinner at a nearby restaurant, while chatting away about design ideas and challenges. We quickly discovered that we are both very mathematical by nature, and of course this carries over to our design approaches as well. “Consider the relationship between rate of increase, and the slopes of…..” well, if your eyes are glazing over by now, I can’t really blame you. 
I think the fact that we both have an engineering background may have something to do with this.
We also realized that we draw our design inspiration from very different sources. Natalie has designed shawls based on both the Eiffel Tower and the Chrysler building. Marvellous ideas, and I really like how she’s translated the buildings into lace. I, on the other hand, have stayed clear of cities and looked towards the natural elements, forests, seas and rocks. And of course of late, my love of mythology and stories has played a part in the designs.
After dinner, there was just a small hop over to the Knitting Guild meeting. During the meeting we were introduced to the new executive committee, and got an overview of the new guild web-site. I was working on one of my new shawl designs in Serenity Silk from the Zen Garden, and I’m very close to finishing it. I thought I might be able to finish it during the meeting, but….. well, I think I was distracted by all the other things on people’s needles, and I still had about half of the bind-off to do.
The last part of the meeting included a show and tell with projects from a number of the guild members. We got to see all sorts of projects, including a lovely afghan, a couple of entrelac scarves, a few lace shawls, and two very lovely tops. One was a cabled tank top, and the other an entrelac/lace top. Both were so nice that I’m going to have to scour Ravelry for the patterns. It’s so inspiring to see all these projects knit up.
The first issue of Knitting Iceland was released today, and it includes an interview with me and a review of the Norns KAL (Seasons of Lace – Summer). Knitting Iceland followed the knit-along all summer. The interview also mentions the Eyjafjallajökull Shawl I designed in the spring – the one inspired by the Icelandic Volcano that erupted earlier this year.
L’Anse Aux Meadows is the first shawl in a series of three shawls on the theme of World Heritage Sites. L’Anse Aux Meadows is located on the north tip of Newfoundland, Canada. In the 1960s archeologists found remains from a Norse settlement – the only one in North America. It is thought to be the site referred to as Vinland in the Icelandic Sagas. Vinland was established by Leif Ericsson around 1003, and the Vikings were settled there for a few years until they returned to Iceland.
It is a triangular shawl knit using one skein of Nightfall from FibroFibers. I used the colourway Ivy to capture the idea of the fertile grounds in Vinland. The shawl shows grape vines since Vinland was named after the grapes (vinbaer) that grew there.
The pattern will be available on Sept 15 as part of the Seasons of Lace series.
Now that we are past Labour Day, it really feels like a new season is starting. Summer is over, and autumn is here. This of course means that there are plenty of new projects on the go. I’ve been spending quite some time this summer planning, and I figured I would have a lot of time to work on the new projects once the kids started school. I was off to a bit of a rocky start – school started on Tuesday, Sept 7, and instead of plunging into my new projects, I had to spend the day in court as I got called for jury duty/jury selection. After several hours I was excused, and was allowed to go home instead of becoming a member of a jury for a trial estimated to last several weeks. Instead I’m reading about the trial in the paper.
Anyhow, after all that excitement, I got the chance to start on some of the new projects and continue on some older ones yesterday. The best part was designing a new scarf using the CashSilk from Sweetgeorgia in Boysenberry. My scarf will use only one skein, but the pattern will be easily adaptable to a larger stole. I’ve been pondering the design for about two weeks, and finally charted it yesterday. I can’t wait to knit it up. I’ve got the first few rows done already…..
I also spent some time writing up patterns that I have been working on during the summer and are being released in other venues during the coming months. Formatting to stylesheets other than my own can be a little tedious, but of course the various publishers want their own formats for the patterns. I still have a few more patterns that need to be “massaged” this way, but I’ll try to space it out a bit, and work on a few other things in-between.
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