The Mermaid Shawl Puzzle

Posted on August 28, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

The Mermaid Shawl has had me puzzled. Last week, I figured out what was going on. Even though I’m using my own pattern, Undine, I didn’t follow the directions. In Undine, the ruffle is created with short rows at the outer edge of the shawl, and this ruffle remains the same width across the shawl. Any changes to the total width of the shawl are made in the body of it, right before the ruffle. (The increases are between the ruffle and the main part of the shawl.) This means that the rows in the body of the shawl are perpendicular to the lead edge, like this:When I began to knit the Mermaid Shawl, though, I didn’t read my own directions! I made my increases at the lead edge (i.e. the beginning of the right side row). This skewed the knit rows. Because of the location of the increase stitch, the rows fall at an angle to the lead edge, like this:The gussets that make the ruffles don’t appear to be in a separate band either. They just flow from the main shawl – in a way that would definitely please a mermaid.

This is pretty interesting. I had no idea this would happen. I would have expected my mistake to make very little difference. I was wrong about that!

If I had just continued, following the rest of the directions for Undine, the stripes would have been at an angle for the entire shawl. But, I had decided to make an inverted V in the back, again with short rows, to emulate the shawl in the Jane Eyre movie. The finished V looks like this:

My revised plan had been for the inverted V to be the middle of the shawl, BUT the knitting still doesn’t line up. In fact, it’s only this new part that is perpendicular to the lead edge, and that means that the picture above is actually the midpoint of the shawl.

I need to knit another inverted V of short rows before decreasing to the end of the shawl to make the shape come out right. The finished shawl will have three triangles. This means that I’ll run out of yarn – I’m half done, but have only 30% of my yarn left. I’m going to have to buy a third ball to finish. I do like it, though, and it will bug me if I don’t finish it so that the rows are straight.

What do you think?

More Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I’ve been knitting and thought it time to show you my progress on that stripey shawl.I’m just past the midpoint. I made a variation to the pattern on a whim. I decided to do some short rows in the middle, so there will be an inverted V down the centre back. This will make the shawl narrower but will also give it a slightly different shape. I worked two stitches less for every second row from about the lime stripey bit until I got down to just a few more stitches than the godets require. (There are more details on my Ravelry project page.)

Look at the ruffled edge at the top and you can see the green godet which is the middle point of the shawl. (It’s the top green godet.) From that point, I’ve been adding back two stitches every second row and will continue until I’m working all of the stitches again. Once there, I’ll carry on with the decreases in the pattern to finish the shawl.

I’ll show you another picture of the turns once I’ve made more progress and you can see the inverted V more clearly. I’m quite happy with this one. What do you think?

Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I thought I’d show you my progress on my Undine striped shawl today. I really like what the self-striping yarn is doing:You can also see how the hem is beginning to flutter. If I held that top edge (the one on the right) straight, it would ripple even more.

I’ll start to decrease the width of the shawl once I’ve used half of the yarn. The easiest way to determine that point is to weigh the balls of yarn. (I use the kitchen scale.) They were each 100g when I started. Now they’re both around 75g. When they get to 52 g or so, I’ll start to decrease. I want to make sure the shawl is symmetrical, so might do something different at the midpoint. We’ll see when I get there.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Knitting for a Mermaid

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

Because I’m having an administrivia week, I needed something to knit in garter stitch. I decided to use one of my own patterns, but make it stripey. The colours in this yarn are shades of blue and green, so that makes it fit for a mermaid. 🙂

The pattern is for a shawl with a ruffled edge and is called Undine. That’s the Ravelry link to the pattern (which is free download) but I also blogged about my first one here. That one was knit in a self-striping yarn – Noro Kureyon Sock – and I mirrored the striping pattern. I’ll add the picture here so you don’t have to click through:For this new one, I wanted stripes. I had two balls of Crazy Zauberball sock yarn, which is a self-striping yarn, in the colourway 2136. Originally, I planned to knit knee socks with this yarn, but I wasn’t happy with the way they were coming out. Plus, I’m more likely to wear a green shawl than green knee socks.

I found a mistake in my own shawl pattern in the set up! Yikes! So, I’ll have to fix the PDF, but here’s a detail shot of the set up tip of the shawl. Although I’m using two balls of yarn for this project, I did this part with only one.I joined the second ball after this, and began alternating between the balls, working two rows from each. Here’s a progress shot:
With the change in colours, you can see the godets more clearly in this version. At this point, I’ve worked seven godets, which make the hem of the shawl ripple when worn.

I’m having fun with this one. It’s not quite a mindless knit, which will keep me interested, as will the self-striping yarn. I also like how the striping is periodically disappearing when the colours from the two balls are similar. This could be avoided by using a solid yarn as one colour or a completely contrasting colourway, but I like when things slide in and out of focus. My Rav project page is here, if you want more detail.

What do you think?

Those Wyrd Sisters

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I was going to tell you about a new shawl project today, but instead, I’m going to show you another one that I finally finished. (Yay!) That post about the new project has been bumped to next Friday.

When I was writing the Dragon Diaries, I did a lot of research on the Wyrd sisters in Norse mythology, also called the Norns (or sometimes the Nairns). These three immortals decide the fate of all living beings – in the myths, they’re spinners, but in Zoë’s books, they’re knitters too. Around about the same time, I was intrigued to discover that a knitting designer had created a trio of shawls to celebrate these three sisters. I had this idea that I’d knit them all to commemorate the publication of Zoë’s story.

I finally cast on in 2013.

I did finish the first one, Verdandi, pretty quickly. Verdandi is the sister who governs the present, so I called my project “Is”. This is a triangular shawl, and I knit mine in Fleece Artist Nyoni. This mohair, wool, silk and nylon blend is discontinued (so that’s a Ravelry link), which is too bad because it’s a scrumptious yarn. I still have a bit in the stash in another green colour. 🙂

The post about my completed Verdandi is right here.

Then I cast on the second shawl, Urdr. Urdr is the sister who governs the past, so my project is called “Was”. That was in September 2013. This is a huge round shawl knit in very fine laceweight yarn. The idea behind the design is that this shawl is supposed to represent the well at the root of the world tree, Yggdrasil, which the sisters tend. I used a gradient colourway from the Unique Sheep called Brigid, which made me think of copper cauldrons and ancient goddesses. (You can see Brigid on this page of the Gradiance colourways. It’s in the middle of the fourth row. Mine didn’t look quite like this sample, but each base yarn takes colour differently. Mine was very teal at the one end and quite a warm grey gold at the other with no mauve or blue bits—actually it has colours like the two middle skeins in the sample.) The base yarn is Ling, which is a silk and merino blend.

Knitting this shawl became a bit of a slog, as the rows at the end had more than 1200 stitches, and I added rows to use more of the yarn. Also, knitted lace looks like nothing until it’s blocked. I was losing heart because I had what looked like a lump in my lap each time I picked up the needles. I told Mr. Math about two weeks ago that I had to finish it, and he said “What’s the rush? You’ll just cast on another one.” Such was my mood that I wasn’t so sure of that. Maybe this would be The Last Shawl.

I should have anticipated that blocking would change everything. it’s such a magical process. Imagine my surprise when my lump stretched out to look like this:It’s at least six feet in diameter and so lovely that I can’t stop looking at it. The yarn is dyed in gradients, which means that there are six skeins in the set, and you change from one to the next as you knit.

Here’s a detail shot, after blocking, on the couch. You can see the colours better in this shot, although IRL, the gradation is more subtle and the middle is less blue than it looks here:It’s supposed to have nupps (which are little knitted knots) but I don’t like knitting nupps so I put beads in those places instead. Because I didn’t make nupps, I used less yarn. I wanted to have the entire gradation of colour, though, so I added repeats to the border. I also added more beads to the outside edge. Details are on my Ravelry project page.

It was totally worth it, and I’m ready to cast on another shawl, if not two! I’ll tell you next week about my nerd knit in that raw silk and merino blend (in another gradient colourway from the Unique Sheep, also with beads). There’s also the third Wyrd sister’s shawl to knit. It’s called Skuld, for the third sister who controls the future. My project will be named “Might Be” and I have some lovely Fleece Artist yarn set aside for it. I’m going to try to be good, though, and finish the lace stole that’s on my needles and only one third knitted before casting on another. (Ha.)

What do you think of my Urdr?

Bitterblue in Progress

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

Time to show you some knitting again!

I had lots of plans to finish more of my projects on the go, but so much for good intentions. I had ordered a kit for the Bitterblue Shawl from Earthfaire in the Magic Carpet colourway, and when it turned up in the mailbox, I just had to cast on right away.

I inverted the order of the colours and am approaching the halfway point. This shawl uses yarn that has been dyed in gradients, each skein slightly different from the previous one so that the end project shades from one colour to the another. In this case, it shades from plum to green. Unique Sheep Gradiance is the name of the company and the line of these meticulously dyed yarns: you can see some of the other colourways on their site, right here.If you looked at the pattern on Earthfaire’s site, you will have noticed that my shawl looks different – and not just because I inverted the colours. The pattern has a larger cast-off after every third repeat of the border pattern. When I tried that, though, I didn’t like the look of it. I thought I’d prefer the shawl if the line between the border and the body of the shawl was smooth, instead of stepped off, so that’s what I’ve done.

The result of that choice will likely be that the shawl will come out a bit shorter – because mine will be wider and there’s a finite amount of yarn. When you use gradient yarns, you’re supposed to ease the transitiion into each colour change, alternating between the old and new colour, before changing completely to the new colour. (Here’s the Unique Sheep tutorial.) This always gives me stress when the rows are of different length, because I fear I’ll leave the wrong amount of yarn and run out in the middle of a row. OTOH, I don’t want to have yarn left over when I’m concerned about the overall size of the shawl. So, I’m just changing from one skein to the next, without easing into the change, and using a Russian join between them. I think it looks good.

You can’t see another change I’ve made: on every row knitting back toward the border, the first stitch is to be knit according to the pattern. I thought the edge was too tight that way, so began to slip that first stitch instead. (And actually you can see it if you know what you’re looking for. The shawl begins at that lower point, where the purple end of yarn is showing. You can see that the right edge curls more in those first few rows – I changed to slipping the stitch before that row of 5 beads.)

And YES, this shawl had beads. A lot of beads. The beads change colours too. I started with yellowy ones on the purple, then shaded into greenish ones. I’ve just changed to the ones called Root Beer and will finish out with purple beads. You can see the beads better in the image below:The wool in this kit is really lovely. I’m not often a fan of silk blends, but this is wool and tussah silk, which is sometimes called wild silk. I love the feel of tussah silk in fabric, and also love it in this yarn. I’ll be wearing this one a lot when it’s done! I might not even block it because I like the look of the garter stitch. We’ll see.

Another Cameo

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Deborah Cooke

Last year, I knit a small shawl called Cameo. That’s the Ravelry link for the pattern, and here’s the post about the other shawl, which is still on the old website.

I started to think about knitting this pattern in self-striping yarns, and finally just had to try it. I had two different colourways of Mille Colori Socks and Lace, so I cast on. Here’s the result:This picture is a teensy bit blurry because I took it without the flash and didn’t hold quite still enough. The one with the flash made the colours look all wrong. You can see how the first yarn striped in those wide bands, and that they got narrower as the rows became longer. Then there’s the alternating stripes between the two colours, but what surprised me was that when I continued in the second colour to the hem, the rows were long enough that it kept striping like the alternating section. You can see the striping better in this detail shot:That top point is on the right and you can clearly see where the alternating rows of stripes begin. It’s a lot tougher to tell where they end. (It was at the green stripe, just to the right of the grout line in the floor.)

I didn’t do the lace on this one, as I thought it would be too much. It’s pretty and bright, a cheerful scarf for a dull winter day.

What do you think?

The Completed Irtfa’a Shawl

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a shawl that was on my needles for years. I kept stalling out on it, but it’s finally done—and it’s blocked too! The challenge this week was figuring out a way to photograph it, because it’s huge.

First off, the pattern. I talked about this one already once, right here. It’s a Faroese shawl, a pattern called Irtfa’a from Anne Hanson of Knitspot. Second, the yarn. I used a handpainted 2-ply merino lace called Fly Designs Dovely—the colour is Swamp Teal. (I’ve thought all along that the colour name needed some revision.) Here’s my Ravelry project page.

And here’s the finished shawl. It’s HUGE! 36″ from the centre back neck in all directions.What do you think?

I thought I was going to cast on my Firedance shawl next, but instead, Urdr made it on to my needles. I’m about a third done, and it’s a pretty knit. It’s the second of three shawls about the three Wyrd Sisters, the Norns from Norse mythology who have cameos in Zoë’s paranormal YA trilogy The Dragon Diaries. You might remember that I finished the first shawl in the series, Verdandi, last winter. I’m saving Skuld for last, just because that’s what she likes best.

Irtfa’a Shawl

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

This shawl has been on my needles for what seems like half of forever. It can’t really have been that long, because I bought the yarn in 2009 at Little Knits in Seattle – I was attending the Emerald City conference and Pam and I did a yarn trawl. The pattern is Irtfa’a by Anne Hanson.This is a Faroese shawl, which means it has a distinctive shape. A Faroese shawl has a vertical band down the centre back – you can see it still scrunched on the needles here – then each side extends like a wing. The border along the hem is knitted on last, which is what I’m in the middle of doing right now. Even though the shawl isn’t blocked, you can already see the shape of it, at least on this left side. The shape is even more clear in the shot on Anne’s website, because that shawl is finished and blocked. (Here’s the link again.)

Here’s a closer look:I knit this following the pattern instructions until I got to the hem. First of all, I added some rows to the hem of the shawl to make the last set of points finish out in diamonds. That’s hard to see here, but will be more clear once it’s blocked. (I like it a lot.) I added some beads (of course!) too. I also changed out the border pattern. Of course, I ended up with a wider one so it’s taking me a while to finish, but it’s a pattern I memorized quickly. (It’s a modified version of a border included in the end matter of Victorian Lace Today.) Here’s my Ravelry project page with a more in depth description of my mods.

I’m hoping to have this one finished soon, so I can cast on my Fire Dance Circle Shawl.

Cameo

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

I’ve just finished another shawl – this one is a wonderful pattern. I love garter stitch and alternating stripes. This one also has a bit of an unusual construction. It was an easy knit.

As usual, the flash has blasted out the colour – this is Madeline Tosh Merino Light and the colours are incredible, both richer and deeper than shows in this image. The colours I used were Firewood and Wicked. The pattern is called Cameo – this is the Ravelry link as the designer doesn’t seem to have a website of her own.

What do you think? I’m quite happy with this one!

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave

Category Archives: Shawls

The Mermaid Shawl Puzzle

More Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Knitting for a Mermaid

Those Wyrd Sisters

Bitterblue in Progress

Another Cameo

The Completed Irtfa’a Shawl

Irtfa’a Shawl

Cameo