Haapsalu Shawl

Yep the darn thing's all done. bee-yootiful if I do say so myself.

Here's a little info on it for the curious:
The whole shawl comes from the fantastic book (now in English) called The Haapsalu Shawl, A Knitted Lace Tradition from Estonia by Siiri Reimann and Aime Edasi. I tried to stick to the exact construction method so that I'd be fully familiar with this fantastic shawl-knitting tradition.
I started it, using USA-made Jaegger Zephyr silk/wool in Sage, on Feb. 5th and finished it today: Dec. 30; with loads of interruptions in between. (Tip: If you put something like this down, even for a leetle while, thoroughly re-read the stitch pattern when you go back to it! I know from bitter experience.)
I chose the Quatrefoil with Stones pattern for the main section (p. 103) because I'd never worked a K5tog/yo/K5tog/yo/K5tog before. It's a stunning stitch. There's no way in heck I could have accomplished it without Addi lace needles.
I used 3.25mm US3's as the main needles, then went up or down according to the directions. When they say cast on loosely and bind off loosely, they really really mean it. In the pictures, that bind off is positively loopy. You need that for blocking later.
My notes say I was not very far into the first repeat when I realized the markers would have to float between pattern repeats. So I felt I had no choice but to remove them. Scary but true.
The edge is knit from the outside edge in, in 2 long strips calculated to go along one long side, around the corner, along one short side, and cut diagonally in half at the edge so the 2 edges are seamed in the middle of a scallop. (The pattern I chose was on the bottom right of p. 181.) Each edge is sewn on with one long piece of yarn, which you have to ease along as you sew. That was scary, because I didn't want that yarn to break as I was easing.
And when they say "pin the edge so you don't get an unpleasant surprise at the end" there must be something lost in the translation. What they mean is, pin the living snots out of the thing, like every 6th stitch, or you definitely will be unpleasantly surprised. One of my edges is sewn on much more precisely than the other, because I learned that lesson halfway through! I don't think anyone else (except an Estonian!) would notice. It was very apparent on the blocking board, though!
Anyway I'm thrilled by how it came out and you can see it displayed at Monarch for the foreseeable future. I'm now on to 2 other lace shawls, which I'll gab about later!

Shawl Blocking & a Defense of Handwash

The more observant among you will be sure to notice in the following pictures that this is written on my day off, yes: Day Off  but as a fellow worker at KRON used to say to me, "For you, anything's too good." Um, thanks?
Anyhoo, I got a small period of time today in which to block my Estonian Haapsalu shawl, in the works for a year (interrupted a million times, of course) using a beautiful seafoam shade of Jaegger Zephyr silk/wool lace weight. So I thought I'd share my personal blocking process with you.
I know that being super-self-taught for so long, it was always good for me to see pictures of things if I couldn't get a real-live demonstration. Here's the caveat: just like knitting, everyone's different when it comes to blocking. Many a lace knitter would rear back in horror at my use of blocking wires instead of pinning every point, for instance. Also, over the years I've gotten a lot more relaxed about exact measurements, because after blocking, it always sproings back to what it wants to be. Having said that, I will say that blocking things squarely to right angles is pretty important, because I've had stuff kind of stay biased when I wasn't careful about that. That's one of the reasons I always use wires where I can. (Side note: Also, on a shaped item (like a sweater) I'll use wires for the straight parts and then pin the curves. Works great for me.)
Now here's one of the reasons I use wires: I can string up much of my shawl while sitting comfortably on the couch, not hunched over my styrofoam board:

Poking point after point, always from back to front

Snickers naps on left, latest project chart on right!

With Snickers napping contentedly next to me. There are yarn ends hanging all over the shawl and Snickers. I never darn in ends until after blocking, so they don't wriggle out when the item is being stretched.
Now I move to my blocking board, which consists of 2 pieces of housing insulation from Home Depot, 1 inch thick, with mildew-fighting sheeting on both sides. My old boards didn't have that Tyvek stuff coating them, and they got mildew-smelling and never could be used again. By the way, the other side has handy markings on it (plus big blue Tyvek ads) if I wanted to easily measure my pieces.

Using board's straight edge to line up scallops

I just start by pinning the wires (pins in wires only, not shawl) with sturdy non-rusting T-Pins, in a couple of places on each side just to square things up.
Then I place more T-pins, smoothing the shawl with flattened hands as I adjust and adjust.

Geez it's even prettier than I'd imagined

Turns out this darn shawl is bigger than my boards! So at the far end, there's a folded up cutting board from my closet's sewing department (haha).
Now most of you may know that my house is tiny, and this would be the bed we need to sleep in tonight! Snickers would be so put out if we didn't! But the beauty of lace is that it will probably be dry by tonight. If not, the whole thing just gets moved onto the floor somewhere. The kitchen would be the only open space that big I fear, since there are looms and spinning wheels everywhere.
Okay, next time you'll get a nice picture of that gorgeous shawl completely done done done.


Now, just a small rant from me about must-have-machine-washable-yarn people. I totally accept that if you feel that way. Really. As a retailer, I'm ever so happy to sell you the much more expensive by the yard superwash wool, or the acrylic blends we purvey so much of. Fine.
But even if you set aside my argument that hand-wash wools are so much more alive, and take stitch patterns beautifully, and are economical, I want to say that hand washing any item takes no more time or effort than machine washing!
1. Fill dishpan with tepid water. You can pour coffee or dial your ever-loving freakin cell phone at the same time as this step, so it doesn't even count.
2. Squirt in a tiny bit of no-rinse wash like Eucalan (grapefruit's my favie) or Soak or another brand; swish once with hand.
3. Drop in socks or sweater and squeeze gently just once to get water into garment. (OK so now your hands are wet and I should count drying them as a time-consuming effort.)

Actually I already soaked the shawl in this first

4. Soak for 10-15 minutes. It is the soaking that removes the soilage. More time for more, ahem, "soiled." This does not count as effort. Go do something else.
5. Remove, squeeze out, drop on old towel. Roll up, drying hands at same time (all counts as one effort, ha).

Ready to roll

6. Step on rolled-up towel, Have fun with this. Make monster faces. Wave arms to hand-wash gods.

An actual fun part to hand washing

7. Toss over shower curtain rod or lay flat on old towel somewhere and leave overnight.

Also note my new wallpaper!

Now really, how tough is that? How much effort overall? And for that, you get longer lasting hand knits. By the way, even when I do use machine-wash yarns (unless it's machine-loving cotton or linen), I hand wash 'em anyway. I think it's because I love making monster faces.

Next time: nope I didn't forget about Feed Your Creativity and Sock of the Every Other Month Club.

New Stuff for the New Year!

Well aren't we just dancing in the aisles around here. We love it when brand new stuff comes in. We especially love it when something comes from a women-owned, employment-creating, American business!

From Appalachian Baby Design comes a big box of beautiful kits to make heirloom-quality items for that special baby in your life. When we pulled these kits out of the box, there was a frenzy among the knitters who happened to be on hand.

The little hooded cardigan kits come with an already-made tassel or pompom, plus hand-painted buttons. The yarn is 100% organic cotton from the USA. There are also some darling hat kits, and hat/mitten/bootie kits, which come in presentation gift boxes with ribbons. You just make the item, pop it back in the box, and head off to the baby shower!!

Plus there are kits for baby pants, a pompom-cornered blanket, a little folk-art-y doll and a stuffed bear. Really over the top cute. Plus the company is a great one, providing Appalachian families work. We love everything about this new item!

And here's a new Debbie Bliss yarn! We are one of the first shops to get the full color range of "Angel," a mohair/silk blend which comes with a dynamite pattern book!

Koryn's going to start working with it this very night. She's happy.


And our friend Marge came over to show us the new Madeleintosh yarn!

It's due out after the first of the year. It's a DK weight, merino wool in a singles construction. Really soft and bouncy. As usual, super great colors. We can't wait to tell you that's arrived! But we all have to wait.

Finally, if you've read this far, you get in on a little secret: we're going to have a sock of the (every other) month club in 2011! We've almost finished the details. More to come. Oh, and don't forget about the new Feed Your Creativity kit coming on January 14th! More on that next time!

Icelandic Tradition & Family History

Just finished a really nice, traditional Icelandic cardigan, made from one of my favorite yarns in the whole shop, which often, and sadly, gets overlooked: Alfa, from SandnesGarn of Norway:

Alfa from SandnesGarn. 66 yds. - $6.25. Makes good hats, too!

 It's a superwash bulky with 15% mohair added to the wool. It's really popular in Europe (and, I notice, on Ravelry!) and the colors are great.

Anyway, here's the story behind my latest creation: back in the late 60's, my Mom got caught up in the Lopi craze, and knit me a really nice sweater, and made one for my brother, too (this was in Minnesota so we really could wear them!) Well, my brother gave me his because he though it was too itchy, but he told me I could never tell Mom, because he didn't want to hurt her feelings!
So now that she's gone, I can tell the world I have that sweater!

40 years later. OK yes I'm sucking in my gut.

It was the inspiration for the one I just finished, which looks much brighter in this picture than in actuality:

This was fun to make. Zipper not so much, but worth it.

By the way, I have no Icelandic heritage. I'm of German stock. But I really admire the knitting traditions of Iceland. The two books I used to create this sweater are "Knitting in the Old Way" by Gibson-Roberts/Robson:

One of my major knitting bibles. Really.

and "Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland & Ireland" by Druchunas.

Fantastic ethnic knitting info, and easy step-by-step instructions

 Both of these books are fantastic, especially if you don't want to be a slave to the same pattern everyone else is doing. Check them out!

Been Awhile, Sorry!

Well geez, the holiday season brings a distinct inability to find time to blog! Darn! OK so now we're back and we apologize for the gap in entries. This will not happen again!!
We have gotten in some of the earlier-mentioned fancy-dancy yarns which are actually suffering a worldwide shortage due to high demand. Apparently the mills are running around the clock and still can't keep up! We whined about really needing to keep our fabulous customers happy, and for once, they listened. The main whinee, Sergey, keeps reminding us that we're really not one of their teensy customers. We're actually one of their big important customers! We have trouble thinking of our humble selves that way.
In any case, the "Dare" yarn is going fast (see earlier entry) and while others are selling it for $40, we are "gifting" it (I hate that word! Gift is not a verb! Oh well just to show you how very modern my verbage is, dude) to you all for $20. That's right, half price! And you could still "gift" it to someone on your list because a fabulous cowl takes one skein, size US 17's, and about one evening!!! Sheesh!!
Here's another one: we got in this ridiculously fancy stuff called Trauco which is like a big net,

Weird but really cool dontcha think?

which you knit on US 11's, 8 stitches, garter, again about one evening. The first 2 shipments disappeared so fast we didn't have time to blog about it! But our third shipment,

You'd never know this is the net you knit with

which consists of bright colors, is in now. And we're blogging about it. Hurriedly.
And finally, and we mean finally because it's been what, a year since we ordered this stuff? Two different  interchangeable sets have arrived. Lantern Moon sent us one each of ebony and rosewood (sorry the ebony are gone) sets and we are all extremely thrilled about the 100% seamless joins on these things.

Lantern Moon Rosewood Interchangeables in Silk Case

And then the new Addi Lace sets are here and they of course sport those amazing points.

Addi Lace Click Set, finally!

This Addi set will accommodate a 16" length, which is just what everyone asked for. Mucho cables adorn this set, and did we mention those amazing points? Two of those sets remain on our shelves.
Oh and most of you have heard that we finally got another big shipment of Madeleine Tosh DK, plus a buncha Tosh Sock yarn. Goodie for us.

Tosh & more Tosh, it's about time!

Now for a couple of pictures of our oh-so-pretty Koryn, wearing her newest design, the "Runway Infinity Cowl".  You can wear it several different ways:

Runway Infinity Cowl

The tiger is not knitted

Here's a cool way she came up with such a cutting edge design: she googled runway fashion and cowl!!!! I shoulda thought of that. Anyway, this (and Koryn, for that matter) looks like it's fresh off the runway in Milan. Four balls of Debbie Bliss Como.

Good colors in Debbie Bliss Como

Once again, monster-sized needles and really quick to complete.

Next edition I'll show you what I've been doing. As most of you know, my deal is historically accurate, ethnic designs (or maybe you didn't know that!). So, I'm just finishing 2 interesting items: an Icelandic cardigan which also draws from my own family history, and yes I'm finally almost to the blocking stage of my Haapsalu (Estonian) shawl, which is a tour de force if I do say so myself. Pictures soon!

Hope to see you soon, too. And remember, if holiday shopping starts to stress you out, come to Monarch, touch fiber, gab with fiber-lovers, sit & chill with your needles and project. We'll get you laughing!