This is a double-big year for this house, because of course it's the house of the bossy dogs AND I was born in the Year of the Dog. So this is a special year all around.
I spent today furiously working on (but not quite finishing) the linen shawl, and my right hand is going to be a claw tomorrow. I can see the finish line but I'm going to do the entire 4th skein, because I know how this linen behaves in feather and fan stitch thanks to my washcloth swatches. It'll relax a lot, it will get wider, and when it does, it will get somewhat shorter. So if it's going to be dramatically drapey (and it has to be, it's eggplant linen for goddsake, it Is Drama) it needs to be LONG before it takes the Kenmore treatment.
So, it'll be done soon, maybe by next weekend if my hand holds up. I'm already contemplating the next linen thing. So, should it be: an office-ready top? Or a drapey Pi Are Square-ish shawl in Euroflax Paris? OR something else entirely?
I have a need for linen. I think I love it because it has that magical quality, the transformation of a not-very-appealing finished object into something different after a little washing machine abuse - so it's like felting, and I love felting. Linen feels all stiff and kind of icky, then you wash and dry it a few times and it's all soft and drapey, and the more you abuse it (my washcloths keep getting nicer) the better it gets. How many things in life are like that?
Depends on the time you want to put in. The top is really cute and will look great in linen. I've made a Pi-are-squared shawl in the feather and fan pattern, and it looked great but took some time.
ReplyDeleteok, I just found a Spring 2005 Interweave Knits that has an exquisite Allhemp6 Wear-Everywear Pullover in it. It was that regrettable issue with the pink Ballet Wrap on the front? There was very little that was knitable in it. If you don't have it, I happen to have an extra copy of the mag and could mail it to you if you like. It's a design by Lana Hames with raglan shaping and small cables. The body and sleeves are worked separately in the round and then joined at the underarm and worked up into a yoke with a slightly raised neck. the only seaming is the underarm...
ReplyDeleteIt's not shaped so I think it would be forgiving, ahem, for those of us who need forgiving...but the bitty cables let it hug the curves. let me know if you'd like me to send it off for your perusal, chica. or I could hand deliver it, heh...
Be very careful when you dry that thing! Remember the giant linen hairball I had after washing and drying my shawl? If I had realized how enormous it was gonna be, I would have watched closer, I'm lucky my dryer didnt go up in flames! Aside from that, I LOVE linen and I can wait to see your shawl!
ReplyDeleteI love that magic moment when something that is one thing suddenly turns into something different - especially when it is also better. Watercolor painting does that - so does spinning. The change is dramatic and always something of a surprise. Must be the Catholic-school teaching - to believe in miracles - in me.
ReplyDeleteI've gotta give linen a try.
My hands have too many age spots and wrinkles already yet. I can't stand for them to feel clawlike too.When I've been knitting or painting too much I rub Bath & Body Works' Aromatherapy eucalyptus spearmint on them before bed. Stretch and wiggle the fingers the next morning and I'm ready to knit or paint again;)
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