Knitter's Favorite Season

Is there anything better than winter? Yesterday, we got this snow in just an hour:
The perfect time for knitting, and for wearing knits. Although I have enough already, here's a new WIP:
It's an Evelyn Clark Heartland Shawl. It calls for Buffalo Gold, and even has a hoofprint incorporated in the pattern, so it is appropriate to use my precious, long-stashed Greenlandic Arnica qiviut (moskusokse fra Grønland). So my excuse for starting something new is that a) it has been stashed for a looong time already and b) it was actually already started, but with a pattern I didn't care for. So, what I was in the middle of was Japel's Forecast. Started with a size M (with an extra 10 stitches cast on under the arm) and the correct gauge, which should fit... but knitted the whole body according to pattern and it did not fit at all. I had tried it on several times, but it came out much to small. I think this happened because the size fit just under the arm, but it should be larger than that to fit over the bust. Ahem. Will not make that mistake again. Also, I didn't like how the front was wavy because the different textures have such different proportions. That could possibly be solved by blocking, but still, the thing just didn't fit.
So, without any pictures, ripped it out to above the arm/body split, knitted to size L, and cast on 10 stitches under the arms again. Just to get a little vaiation, I them knitted the sleeves (2 at a time of course). I made them tapered, and finished with a seed stitch cuff to match the collar:
So now, it's the body. I'm making it fitted, without the original rib. More about that later - this is as far as I got, because then the Heartland came along.
A bit about another project that is not just hibernating, I think it's stone dead. This is 3 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted knitted into a long scarf on 6 mm needles, with quarters tied in (with elastic bands) to make a shibori pattern. I first tried some smaller glass pebbles, but they popped out between the stitches. So then went with the quarters instead. Each is only covered by a few stitches:
Because this was very heavy, I decided to try hand-fulling instead of throwing it in the machine. Immediately, quarters started popping out between the stitches. Grrrr! In a couple of minutes, at least 10 had popped out. I had to give up. This is the point where i should have thrown the whole thing out of the window. Instead, I decided to take the elastic bands off (out of wet wool) and dry the scarf to think about my options. So, it took almost 2 hours to plan out the wavy pattern, mark it with threads, and tie in the quarters. The felting attempt and getting all the stuff out of there another hour. With no result whatsoever. Grrrrr!
I don't think I'll make another shibori attempt soon. The problem was obviously the ratio of stitch size to quarters. But you're supposed to knit big for fulling, right?? And I don't want to use something much bigger for the bobbles, that would look ridiculous. Shibori is on the compost pile for now. As far as the Lamb's Pride is concerned, it will be frogged and used for something else. But I might stash it for some decades for punishment before I do anything with it again.

Shetland Lace Shawl, Blocking

Whee! Finished the border of my red shetland lace shawl in what may be called a knitting marathon. Here it is blocking:I blocked it to 130 x 130 cm, hope this is enough. I think it looks good, although the faggotting between the middle and outer borders is not completely square. Was not sure what to do about this - thought about blocking it too, but thought it would look worse...
The shawl is blocking without sewing in the (two, but anyway) loose ends, on the assumption that it will easier to see how tight they should be sewn one blocked.
I was not sure about how to knit the faggotting around the corners. I made about one extra repeat (10 rows) at each corner, and made extra faggotting as well. But the extra stitches are really not needed on the inside of the corner, and the faggotting is somewhat clumped together I think. Looked at pictures in Victorian Lace Today, and they show extra faggotting as well... still not completely convinced, though.
Besides that, the verdict is: happy!

Shetland Lace Shawl New vs. Old Method

There has been some progress with my lace shawl. Also some unraveling, but in the end more knitted than removed. The pattern describes how to knit the edge panels one by one, so here is the first one:and in close-up:
nice, I think. But then the trouble started. The next panel needs to be knitted together with the first one at the edge, which will form a corner. This did not look good. Tried to convince myself it was OK for a while and continued... but in the end had to face the facts. So unraveled, and I am now knitting the entire border in the round, with alternating purl rows. I thought this would be ugly because of different tension in knit and purl rows, but that's not the case at all. The corners now look very nice, and all four look the same (I thought the corner where I change between knit and purl would not look the same as the others, but with yo's on every row, they look exactly the same). So the only problem is it doesn't look like much bundled together on the needle:but think it will turn out very nice in the end. Of course, knitting the border in the round seems to be the traditional way, and is in every respect much better than knitting back and forth.

Oops, I did it again!

I was peacefully working on my Noro project, and then suddenly... I had a new project in my hands! I'm using a pattern for a Shetland lace shawl from a book called "Illustrated Guide to Knitting The Creative Way" edited by Janie Ryan. I bought it from a pile of used books, price $1, which I must say is cheap for this book: half of it is an 80's horror show that really belongs in The Museum of Kitschy Stitches, the other half is useful classic patterns. One of them said pattern for a Shetland lace shawl:I'm using some Spinni Tweed from my stash, bought from Henriksens Uldspinderi. I am knitting it very loosely on an Addi Turbo Lace 3.5 mm circular, and it feels great! It really almost knits itself in my hands. So the center is already done, and I've started the first border: