Sunday, June 10, 2007

Shawl is Done

Here is the completed Irish Diamond Shawl. I started it in April and finished it last Friday night (6/8). I washed it this morning and now it's pinned out for blocking on a large terry-cloth table cover on my bed. It's 49 inches square.


It won't take long to dry with the ceiling fan blowing a nice breeze. Now all I have to worry about is making sure the cat doesn't jump up here to take a nap on it (cats like to do that, you know!) Once it's dry, I will probably spend another half hour picking off all the little white Sophie furs. Then I'll wrap it up and stick it in my moth-ball scented closet till Olmsted County Fair time (end of July), when I'm going to enter it in the knitting competition.

Here's a closer look at the pattern detail. It was worked from the center out and entirely from a chart. The design was created on the right side only and the wrong side stitches were all purled. There are approximately 130 rows.

Lace knitting looks so much more complicated that it really is. The designs are made with combinations of knitting 2 stitches together with a yarnover. The yarnover is what makes the hole and keeps an even number of stitches that makes up for knitting 2 together. By putting these combinations into different shapes, you create the lace design.

This is the chart I followed for making this shawl. The little o's are the yarnover and the slashes ( \ or / ) show the direction for knitting 2 stitches together. Plain boxes are plain stitches.


I'm very happy with how this shawl turned out. It's hard to tell what you've got when it's all bunched up on the knitting needles.

7 comments:

Ruth said...

I love the colour you chose. "Simple" you say! I would give you a first prize.
ruth

RuthieJ said...

Thank you, Ruth. Truly, lace knitting is so much easier to learn than 2-colored knitting. I have a couple good pattern books for sampler dishcloths that use lace knitting techniques (YO, K2 tog). It's a great way to learn new stitches on a small scale and have something usable (or a great gift) when you're done. Let me know if you'd like me to share any of these dishcloth patterns with you.

Mary C said...

Congratulations, Ruthie! Great job, and good luck at the county fair. It was easy for me to picture Sophie jumping up and laying on your new project -- all our cats love to lay on my bed, and especially if there's something there you don't want them to lay on! The design looks so elegant, but I agree with you that it was relatively easy to do. It's been about 4-5 years since I last knitted or crocheted anything. My excuse is that I work 32 hours/week and don't have the extra time to do needlework projects like I used to. I don't know how you do it, knowing you work outside of the home during the week. :)

Mary said...

Like Mary C said, I don't know how you find the time for this hobby. The drawing looks way too complicated for me :o) Good job, Ruthie!

RuthieJ said...

Mary & Mary, if you could see how messy my house is, you would say to yourself, "this woman spends far too much time knitting!" It's not that I have time for it, it's just that there's so much other stuff I'd rather not do, so I don't! The other thing that helps is that knitting goes where I go and since I'm a passenger on the daily commute, that's 40 more minutes a day to knit!

Ruth said...

I can knit dishcloths! and would love to have a pattern from you. I even have yarn. I so identify with your comments on housekeeping! There are so many more interesting things to do besides dusting.

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

WOW Ruthie! I am impressed. It really is lovely!