I’m still knitting away on the Wollmeise Lace-Garn Cardigan. The body is completed and I have started on the sleeves.
I ended up frogging back the body 3 times I think. Mainly because of small mistakes that I just didn’t find on time, and then couldn’t be fixed nicely. And I *hate* mistakes in my knitting, so once I’ve found them I just have to fix them. Oh well, it’s all good now.
This cardigan will be waist-length, with full length sleeves, and I’m sure that I will still have a fair amount of yarn left over. One skein of Lace-Garn is all of 300 g and a little over 1,700 yards, so there is a lot of margin.
I’ve also made some progress on the sleeve. Not much, but it’s coming along. I’ve knit this part twice as well, just because I changed my mind on where to start the round, and I think this will work a lot better for multiple sizes.
My plan is to block the body in the next day or two, and then block the sleeves (after I’ve knit them, of course – getting ahead of myself a little) separately, and attach them after the fact.
Aside from the cardigan, I’ve also been working on a whole slew of different designs. If everything pans out I will have a very busy summer ahead of me. 
But it’s better to be too busy than to not have anything to do, I think.
The stories of the Norns have always fascinated me.
The three sisters live in a remote area of Aasgard, under the first root of Yggdrasil. They live in a dark cave, and in front of the cave is a well. The root of Yggdrasil snakes around the well. Each day the sisters collect water from the well and mix it with the magic clay and the coarse sand surrounding the well. They create a paste with which they cover the root to prevent rot and to preserve the life force of the tree. Yggdrasil is the world tree – central to the nine worlds of Norse mythology.
Every morning after caring for the tree, the sisters start to spin. But the thread they spin is no ordinary thread; it is not only the thread of life for all human and divine life, but also the thread determining the fate of the universe. It is the norns that measure time and control the past, the present and the future.
Their names stem from their work. Urðr represents the past, Verðandi the present and Skuld that which will happen. Together they represent destiny.
The home of the Norns, at the well, in the shade of Yggdrasil’s root is a holy place. There are three reasons it is a holy place; this is where Yggdrasil is cared for so that no rot could spread in the universe. It’s where Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld spin the thread of life and death. And it’s where the Norse gods go every day to discuss and lay plans to postpone the destruction of the world – Ragnarrök.
What could be better than an entire season of lace?
Each month you will receive a brand new pattern for a lace shawl designed based on the current theme. The lace subscription can be ordered for the summer (3 months), or summer & autumn (6 months) – Summer (June-August), and Autumn (September-November).
The theme for the summer is the three Norns (Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld). They determine the fate of all living creatures by spinning the threads of life. And they water Yggdrasil – the tree of life – so the branches do not dry out or rot.
In the autumn, we will be visiting three different world heritage sites. These shawls will be published in September, October and November.
The cost for 3 months is $20 CDN. And the cost for 6 months is $38 CDN. Each month you will receive a brand new shawl pattern. The yarn requirements vary from shawl to shawl. For the first three shawls I have used 1 skein of Marks & Kattens Fame Trend (460 yds per 100 g), 2 skeins of Unique Sheep Eos (total 1280 yds, 640 yds per 2 oz), and 1 skein of Sappho II from the Sanguine Gryphon (440 yds per 3.5 oz).
This yarn has captured my imagination since the first time I saw it. The very first time I saw it was when Victor (aka Elemmaciltur on Ravelry) knit a Mystic Waters using it. That was back in 2007. The yarn is Wollmeise Lace-Garn in Pfefferminz Prinz, and I just love these blues and greens together.
Of course, as I’m sure you know, purchasing Wollmeise is tricky to say the least, and hunting for a specific colourway even more so. But I was very lucky a year ago, and Nikki (aka kurokids on Ravelry) offered me one of her skeins of Pfefferminz Prinz.
Since then, I have been looking for the perfect project. I have had several different ideas, but nothing that seemed just right. Finally this past weekend I began swatching for a laceweight cardigan. And I can tell this is going to be it. I cast on on Sunday evening and have managed to knit a few rows on the body.
The colours make me think not so much of peppermint as of turquoise oceans in the Caribbean.
The swatch pattern for the Mystic Desire KAL has been posted. With only one week left until the first part of the pattern, you will now have the opportunity to try out your yarn and your needles.
Knitting a lace shawl is a little different from knitting a sweater in terms of gauge. No matter what your gauge is, you will still end up with a shawl. It may not be exactly the same size as mine, but it will be a nice, usable shawl. With a sweater you have to be more careful with gauge, since you want it to fit you well.
The thing to look for in a lace swatch is the difference between the yarn-overs and the stockinette portion. Do they look significantly different? And do you like the fabric of your swatch? If the answer is yes to both of those questions, you’re probably good to go.
The size of my swatch is 15 cm (width) x 12 cm (height). If yours is twice the size of mine, you might want to rethink your choices of yarn and needles, since your shawl will be really enormous. But if you’re reasonably close, you’re good to go.
Happy knitting!
There’s still time to join the KAL – for details and sign-up, see the KAL section.
You might have thought that since it’s the end of April, we would be done with this white, fluffy stuff…..
This morning when we looked out the bedroom window, it appeared that we had been transported to the inside of a snow-globe. There were huge white flakes floating around lazily in the sky. The lawn was covered in snow, and the spruces started to look like it was Christmas time.
If you look carefully on the left side of the picture though, you can tell that the birch has some leaves though. Definitely not December.
And that’s the backyard.
If we go to the front of the house, what do we see?
Daffodils!
I really wonder if they will recover. I guess it depends on how long the snow is planning on staying. Just yesterday it was 20C, warm and sunny. I was sitting on the back deck working on another lace shawl, and the kids were playing badminton on the lawn. We had popsicles and freezies and it was starting to feel like summer. I’m hoping for more of those days in the next little while, and fewer snowstorms.
The Topkapi Scarf is finished and the pattern is now available. The pattern includes detailed instructions on two different double-knitting techniques. The pattern itself is charted.
The pattern is a geometric designed based on the design found on some Turkish tiles. And the name, as I mentioned, is from the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. I was lucky enough to visit the Topkapi Palace a few years ago, and I was simply amazed at the decor. So many of the rooms were completely covered in tiles – from the rooms in the sultan’s living quarters, to the baths, and some of the religious kiosks. The Turkish and Islamic tiles are a great source of inspiration, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I look in this direction again for future designs. It’s such a rich culture in colours and patterns and texture.
It’s been quick knitting on my part – double-knitting only gets faster and faster, I think. I ended up using about 200 g of fingering weight wool (100 g of each colour). Since Wollmeise 100% Sockenwolle comes in 150 g skeins, I still had quite a bit left-over, so I could have made the scarf significantly longer. The length is adjustable in the pattern, and the scarf is about 18 cm wide.
As promised, here are some shots of me and the lace cardigan.
It’s meant to be worn open and doesn’t close in the front at all. It works well with jeans and a black tank top, I think, but could certainly be worn with something a little more dressy.
I just loved knitting this cardigan with a hand-dyed semi-solid yarn. It’s quite pleasing to see the variation in colour in the stockinette portion of the cardigan, and yet it doesn’t in any way detract from the lace patterning. The variation between the two skeins I used was barely visible. However, this is not always the case, so even though I didn’t do it, it’s probably a good idea to alternate skeins. Out of the four skeins of Skinny Bugga! I had to play with, three were quite similar and the fourth was visibly darker, and had I used that one I definitely would have had to alternate skeins.
On a completely different note: can you tell spring is coming? I just LOVE this time of year, when the leaves are starting to open and everything is bright green. If you look really carefully on the top picture, you can also see last years’ bright red cranberries…. I guess it wasn’t a harsh winter, so the birds didn’t eat them all.
The Lace Cardigan is finished! Since I don’t have company at the moment, I can’t model it. So only have a picture of the cardigan on a hanger. But I’ll rectify that later – I promise.
This lace cardigan is my own design, and used only two skeins of Skinny Bugga! from the Sanguine Gryphon (for size 36″). I was surprised that I only needed two (I had FOUR to play with, so now I have to dream up another project with the other two skeins). But the yardage was very generous, and I even had a little bit left-over from the two skeins.
The body of the cardigan is knit in one piece up to the armholes. It is then separated and you knit the back first, and then each of the fronts. The small lace edging along the front wraps around the collar. The sleeves are set-in sleeves, and knit flat starting at the lace cuff. It’s basically an adult size version of the cardigan I knit for my daughter last fall, with a few modifications and improvements.
Double-knitting is really addictive. I really enjoyed knitting the StarLight shawl, and I’ve been planning a new double=knitting project ever since I finished that one. So this past weekend I cast on for this scarf on the left. The design is a stylized design, inspired by some of the patterns on Turkish tiles. And that of course reminds me of the fabulous Topkapi palace in Istanbul, which has more amazing tiles than just about anywhere else that I have visited. Topkapi palace was the home of the Ottoman Sultans for 400 years, and it’s clear that nothing but the best was good enough when decorating the palace.
So without further ado, let me introduce the Topkapi scarf. Once again, I’m using Wollmeise 100% Sockenwolle – mainly because if the strong colours. The blue is called Neptune, and the red is a Versuchskaninchen (i.e. a guinea pig colour, not one of the “official” ones).
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