Swatch What You’re Doing (Warning: Knitting)

Now that the sunsets come early and those long, gold-washed evenings of watching the sun go down while talking about writing are but a memory, I have been contemplating new projects. As a knitter I have often plunged into projects before I really gave them adequate preparation and then tried to compensate for that for fudging as I go along. This has resulted in some truly ugly items.

Maybe things are just getting less urgent as I age but I genuinely love taking my time and testing things out before I begin a project. There is something pleasantly leisurely and undemanding about it. I don’t feel compelled to get it right because I probably will just rip it out anyway.

Lately I have been “swatching” - trying out new yarns and trying to teach myself new patterns. The tremendous variety of lace knitting patterns astonishes me. I have a stack of books full of them. So I have set about trying to teach myself a few patterns before I actually begin the projects I have in my head. I was trying to photograph them with the digital camera but found laying them on the bed of the scanner actually worked better! So here are the current fascinations:

1. Traveling Vine - This is a beautiful pattern that I once mangled hopelessly. It would make a gorgeous long scarf with deep fringe so I am working here at getting the pattern down before I begin the scarf. It is knit in Knit Picks’ Cornflower Andean Silk and I think this may be ideal for the scarf I have in mind.

2. Rose Trellis - Ever since I saw the Mediterranean Shawl in A Gathering of Lace I have been wanting to learn this. I’m not sure what it will be eventually - it is a complicated pattern to learn. Here I am swatching it in the Russian Wool/Angora I got on eBay and I am starting to get the rhythm of it. Whatever it winds up in can’t help but be beautiful.

3. Shooting Star or Frost Flowers - in A Gathering of Lace this is called Frost Flowers but in my old Vintage Knitting Patterns they call it Shooting Star. This is another of those challenging patterns. I decided to try it in Knit Picks’ Sky Shine because of the gorgeous stitch definition of this silky Pima cotton. Again, I don’t know where I will use it but I’m loving learning the pattern.

4. Random experiment - Ever since I saw the Lady Eleanor Stole in Scarf Style I’ve been wanting to make one. However much of the charm of the stole in that book is the soft, woodsy colors of the yarn they used which has been discontinued. Plus it looks to be a heavy shawl and I’d like it a bit finer. I have searched knitting sites on line and seen some genuinely awful versions of the Lady Eleanor - glaring colors and abrupt color shifts. So I got the idea to try it using half a dozen shades of lace-weight wool from Handpainted Yarn and use two strands together, changing one of the two yarns on each successive tier. That way there will be a softness and continuity. This is just one sample using their Jacinto and Emaral Blue together. I’ve also purchased Violetas, Barbie Rose, Thistle, Fuscia, and Cuarenta to alternate.

So that’s what’s on my mind today. We shall see how the swatching progresses.

Thanks for reading.