Everybody wants a rock...

DNA Scarf w/ blue ribbon

DNA Scarf w/ blue ribbon
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

I did make it to the state fair, on the final weekend. Carrie was nice enough to alleviate some of the suspense by mailing me photos a couple days before. Um, we don't usually wear our scarves over our heads here...

But at least it was displayed prominently, unlike most of the works that were crammed into a tiny display case. It broke my heart to see all of the work that went into the sweaters and shawls, which were all folded up into tiny squares. It was nearly impossible to see the stitchwork, let alone shaping. I thought I was going to be able to get a beautiful shot of my Highland Triangle Shawl, but instead I got this:

Yup. It's that tiny pinkish-rusty square in the center.

My first shawl!

Highland triangle shawl
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

I thought that I would be able to get a good shot of the Highland Triangle Shawl at the state fair, but I was cruelly disappointed - almost all of the knitting entered was crammed into one case. So here it is, taken from the persepective of the stairs. I will be sending out a lot of packages on Monday, this one is for my grandmother.

And with matching fingerless mittens:

Don't know how this is suppos'd to be done...

Knitting bindoff
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

But I've put the live stitches on a Denise cord, with a cap at one end and needle at the other, making a long straight. The other needle is used as-is. I've moved to a shorter Denise cord now that I'm almost two-thirds of the way done with the bindoff. When I'm done for the moment, I can switch the needle to a cap to keep the live stitches on.

Shawl edging

Wrong side
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through and opera-glass. At last he said, 'You're travelling the wrong way,' and shut up the window and went away.

Really, this is what my knitting was telling me. I tried the edging from both sides of the shawl, k2tog, k2tog tbl, ssk; s1 purlwise, s1 knitwise; yif, yib... and it was still cross at me. Finally, once I got a chance to get into Borealis Yarns this Sunday, we have a winner. The first two repeats are ssk, s1 knitwise, yib (ugh! ugly!)... the last repeat is p2tog, s1 knitwise, yib. This zippers it up much more smoothly. I'm not going to think about whether a more obvious ridge is a design element - the ssk, s1 purlwise, yif was both neat and obvious, but any mistakes would have been glaring.

Right side of shawl:

Edging finished

Highland Triangle Shawl
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

Closeup of the knitted edge. On the "waste yarn," aka a 52" cord from the Denise system. Now I need to figure out the knitted edging bindoff. It is knit from side to side, with 2 rows for every live stitch. That means 740 rows. Now why did I have to calculate that?

On the plus side, I like the shawl better now that I can lay it out. I believe the term is that the two yarns have the same saturation, which is a fancy way of saying brightness. Unfortunately the only photo of the whole shawl that wasn't blurry involved an accidental flash, so it really is bright:


I didn't want to deal with the yarn clutter on my table, so I present the clutter at Borealis Yarns instead.

But it's okay, they're professionals.

Zen and the art of needle maintenance

Shawl edging
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

Ah, the edging. In Cherry Tree Hill brick, which is a hand-dyed monochromatic (which is a long-winded way of saying that it is just as expensive as the multi-colored). The rust-color matches the rust in the potluck "brights" skein. I thought the brown would tone it down, but it is really turning out quite "gemmy" overall. I kept on with the edging, thinking as the proportion of brown increased, magic would finally happen, but I think the tones (hues? values? need to learn right technical term) are really too similar. Not sure if I like the way it is turning out, but it is difficult to tell with so much of the edging scrunched up on the needles.

And the zen part?

Up close and personal

Highland Triangle Shawl closeup
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

Update: Someone left me a comment! With a question! I really haven't figured out the blog ettique, since if I reply directly, then other people that might have the same question can't see the answer. And if I answer in the blog, she might not return and see it.

Oh well, here goes: Susan, I used almost all of one skein (about 85% of 370 yards) for the center of the triangle; Cherry Tree Hill in a "potlock" color in the "bright" family. (Borealis Yarns carries the potlock skeins, so you can check them out rather than really taking potlock.) The border and edging, which I'm working on now, takes about 450 yards, so I got 2 skeins of the Cherry Tree Hill in brick. If you make it in one color, you could probably get away with two skeins if you decreased the size a little bit.

Mwah ha ha ha!

Highland Triangle Shawl
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

I have lots of photos left to feed the blog, now. But I thought I would spread it out for a few days, so as to keep the interest level up and also not overwhelm the few brave souls that kept me subscribed on their bloglines, in spite of a functionally braindead blog. I chose this WIP first, since I vowed to finish it on the "Finish it" KAL on the knittyboard.

I have the center triangle done of the Highland Triangle Shawl from the Folk Shawls book. I pretty much did this straight through last month, with a week-long break to knit something up for my Knitty SP. The unfortunate thing about an equilateral triangle, especially knitted from the bottom up, is that I couldn't stop myself from visualizing how much I had left to do.

Now the challenge is to cast on 131 stitches on each side. I finally put the thumbs on the fingerless mittens (thereby laying those suckers to rest, photos to follow), which was my practice. I cast on one side, but didn't like it and ripped it out. Trying again tonight or tomorrow morning.