Like a Warm Hug

Warning: Today’s post is about knitting. For me knitting is my form of meditation - we all have to have some quiet, centering activity - prayer, meditation, zoning out in front of the tube. I knit.

For years I knit useful things like mittens, sweaters, and socks but in recent years I’ve fallen in love with shawls and most of my knitting projects now are shawls or scarves. They have the blessed advantage of not having to be made a particular size so I can just work on them and not concern myself with who the eventual recipient will be and what size they are as I work.

A couple years ago I made a beautiful soft blue shawl out of a 50% cashmere / 50% silk yarn that was so beautiful I thought I would never be able to part with it but when it was finished it just looked like my sister Beth. I knew immediately it was Beth’s shawl. I sent it to her and, when she wrote back to thank me, she said “wearing it is like a warm hug”. I thought that was very beautiful.

I finally finished my Ostrich Plume Shawl over the weekend. It is one of the most ambitious shawls I’ve ever made based on the Snowdrops Lace Shawl in a very old issue of Knitter’s Magazine I still have. It is knit in a deliciously soft 80% wool / 20% angora eggshell-colored yarn I bought on eBay a few years ago. The center panel is a long rectangle in the ostrich plume stitch. I then picked up the stitches around the perimeter and knit outward in a combination of Little Leaf and Snowdrop stitches, mitering the corners as I worked. I finished it by knitting off the edge in Tunisian stitch - a wonderful garter stitch lace I copied off of an internet knitting site.

Ostrich Plume Shawl with closeups of mitered corner and edge stitch.

I have not yet blocked it so am unsure of the finished size but it will be big - approximately 30" x 75" - a warm, generous shawl but very, very light. I do not know who will eventually own it yet.

Shawl-making is a scrumptiously wonderful combination of finding a luscious yarn in a wonderful color and then deciding on the shape and pattern that would best compliment that yarn. I have several shawls in process right now and am always thrilled when one gets finished.

When I discovered lace knitting - and then shawl-making - I went on a fiber-buying binge which has slowed down but not stopped over time. I recently did a stash inventory of my lace yarns and I have enough knitting ahead of me for a long time. There is a 50/50 cashmere/silk in a lovely color called “pollen” which is started in the popular Arabesque pattern. A meltingly soft 100% Pima cotton in Bubblegum pink is halfway to being a long rectangular shawl in a falling leaf pattern. When I discovered Knit Picks I went wild and now have enough yarn for four shawls from their fibers.

Their yarn Shimmer, a luscious silk/alpaca blend, is on the needles now and I have bags of their Sky blue Pima cotton blend and Ocean blue-green Suri alpaca awaiting inspiration. I bought 6 skeins of their luscious Morning Mist alpaca not knowing what I would do with it but now know it is destined for a Forest Path Stole which I recently got the instructions for.

I’m discovering that knitting is a lot like writing. Characters show up and tell you who they are despite what you think. Fibers show up and tell you what you are going to make from them - and then who they will go to. Some years back I bought four half-pound skeins of beautiful 100% silk noil from a company called Blue Heron. Recently I saw a shawl called Lady Eleanor and that silk popped immediately into my mind. Funny how that works.

I expect eventually they will let me know who they belong to but I can wait.

Thanks for reading.