Miralda's Triangular Shawl - Finished

(Sorry for the crummy pictures, but they're the best I can muster right now.)

This is my working of "Miralda's Triangular Shawl", from Nancy Bush's "Knitted Lace of Estonia". The book was one of my purchases at Lacis, on my trip to San Francisco last Nov.

I think I started this on Christmas Eve, got it finished the morning we took Dad to hospital, and blocked it out one day last week. (Yes, it peaks up like that at centre back. No, I didn't block it out that way. But I didn't block it to obviate the peak, either.)

Knitting was very straight-forward. Good directions; no errors in the pattern or charts. This is not, however, a design for you if you don't like nupps. Each large diamond motif has 28 of them; each small diamond has 4.

This is the cast-on edge, which forms a nice peaked edge. Above that there is a simple knot stitch; you can just see it at the top of this image, and the bottom of the above image. Very effective; it's repeated above the diamond panel.

 

There's a nice openwork pattern sued above the diamond pattern. Very simple to execute, very effective.

Yarn was from my stash. I know I bought it at a show somewhere, because I remember it came in a very wide range of colours. But I can't remember the vendor or the show. (I can remember the display, though.) The label information says the yarn is named "Gauja", it's 100% wool, spun in Latvia for Headwater Wool. The skein was 100 grams with 350 meters. I used about one-ana-half skeins.

The colour is unusual. In morning light or sunlight, it's looks a very yellowy-green. In indoor light or afternoon/evening, it looks an off-olive.

All in all, a nice knit.

In Other News

As my American readers will know, February is National Pot Roast Month.  There is a most excellent recipe here. (I've been eating it for about a week now, and I think it's still good.)

Gotta run. There is a strong possibility I'll be working 7 days/week for the next 3 months, so who knows if I'll be able to post.

Comments

[JoVE]

Beautiful shawl. Yucky work schedule. I assume that means your company got the contract. Not sure whether that is good news or not.

[Kim U]

Beautiful shawl! I'm not a fan of knitting nupps, but these look particularly nice.

[Natalie]

beautiful shawl, Naw I have a reason to save some yarn i have for my copy of the book to arrive.

[anne marie in philly]

"national pot roast month"? WHAT will they think of next?!?

damn, you can crank out a shawl in no time - little more than a month from my calculations. very nice, ted; excellent colorway!

[Mark]

Beautiful work. A month?
I think I have that book on back-order.

[Linda Cunningham]

Gorgeous, Ted. At least with all that work, you can go on the retreat with a clear conscience and a fat bank balance.

I'd do something to celebrate National Pot Roast Month, but they're hard to cook on the BBQ, which I plan to fire up as much as possible for the next while....

[dana]

beautiful shawl! how did you decide which one you wanted to knit? i'm having trouble in that regard, since i like all of the shawls in that book.
three months with no knitterguy? it will be tough. but i suppose working a lot is better than not working at all...

[Diane in Chico, CA]

Lovely, just lovely! I looked at the picture in the book and the straight double decrease up the center is more noticeable in the book. I prefer the yarn you chose for this particular shawl because it doesn't emphasize that straight line up the middle so much.

What do you think the shawl would have looked like if alternating left- and right-leaning double decreases were used instead of the straight decreases? (I played with the different decreases in the Lewis sampler - http://dfnojunk.typepad.com/tailfeathers/2006/03/lace_sampler_pa_1.html.)

I love the way nupps look, but purling 5 together a zillion times might make my wrists go on strike. I suppose, though, that you would teach yourself to do the [k1 yo k1 yo k1] *very* loosely just out of self preservation :-)

Hope you really don't have to work 7 days a week for months.

[LaurieM]

Really lovely shawl. I really like how the diamonds reflect themselves at the middle.

Thanks for the tour of the details. It was great to see what new things were in the book.

[Valerie]

The shawl is lovely. Fast work...especially with all the nupps!

Thanks for the pot roast recipe link. Just before logging on I pulled a roast out of the freezer w/o any plans for it. Now I have a plan.

I may even have a plan for some yarn in my stash too. Thanks again!

[lori]

The yarn is Gauja fingering (http://headwaterwool.com/YarnDetail.aspx?row_num=12). I have some in my stash in their laceweight (Ilga) in the same green colour and I have some of their worsted on the needles in a blue. It's nice old-fashioned-feeling wool but in fabulous fun colours. I kind of like how it comes from Latvia which is probably a good place to get wool from. :)

Nice work. I like admiring knitted nupps but they are definitely not my forte.

Hope to hear from you soon despite the wicked new work schedule. :(

[Alice]

Lovely! I'm also working on a scarf from this book, and have finally learned to love all those nupps. :)

I hope you get some breaks from work now and then!

[Danny Ouellette]

Hugs Ted and hope you get some rest from all the work.

That shawl is lovely! I got the book for xmas, and I've been drooling over a couple of the patterns. I might do one of the simpler ones just to get the nupps under control.

Headwater usually goes to KW fair and the DKC's Knitter's Frolic, so you might have got it there. I've got a bundle of this stuff in my stash. I use it for trying out stitch patterns and for figuring things out.

Hugs and keep well.

[TracyKM]

The vendor is Headwater Wool. They had a store in Acton, but I think it's closed, and they have one in Orangeville (according to their website, we are 20 minutes from Bolton?! WTF. My husband works in Bolton and has never made it in that time, 40 minutes is about the best he could do, and it's definately more than 30 minutes to Guelph or Georgetown--I go there regularly). It's a great yarn for things like mittens, but I don't find it too soft. And, it WILL felt (the laceweight fulled slightly in the machine, while the heavier versions managed through accidental washings with little felting, but I have felted it very well, on purpose).
It's the only yarn I will buy at that store for a variety of reasons.
The shawl is gorgeous! Could it be knit without the nupps though? I'm not a nupps person, LOL.

[d2]

Just a question: what is the difference between nupps and bobbles? Size? Swear words used during the construction of them?