Monday, September 18, 2006

A-swatching we will go…

Still thinking about shawls here and yes, still playing with shapes :) After last Friday’s post about the shape of an individual segment of Horseshoe lace, I spent some time trying to replicate it.  This got varying results :)

The first attempt was a center double-decrease effort.  Nothing else was done, no futzing around on the edges or anything.  I cast on 31 stitches and decreased two stitches in the middle on every right-side row.  You can see that yields a sort of delta wing shape - not unattractive, but not shawl-suitable either.  I need that bottom edge (as you’re looking at the picture) to angle up and in towards the middle, not down and out.





This time I tried increasing in the center along with some rudimentary lace work.  Actually, I really liked the pattern that was evolving.  In particular each right-side row started with a (K2tog, YO) x2 and ended with a (YO, SSK) x2 that lent a nice feeling (to me) of solidity to the edges.  Where I had suspected that I wouldn’t like the look of it, I wound up liking it quite a lot.  Unfortunately the overall shape still isn’t workable - but there are things here that can be worked on, or worked into another attempt.





The last major attempt was this one and it came out totally differently that I expected.  I had noticed on the horseshoe piece that the number of apparent stitches in the pattern increased by 4 on each side of the center line and so I took that idea with me into this swatch.  There were no increases or decreases in the center - the increases were all off to the sides.  However, increasing 8 stitches in a regular fashion on every right-side row gave me a circular shape.

Okay, it’s not what I was looking for, but at least it’s workable as a shawl :) Or at least it would be if it were large enough.  I would absolutely continue to do the increases in a mirrored fashion and I would be thinking about introducing a pattern of some sort into the panels as they grew large enough to accommodate some kind of lace design.

I can appreciate the beauty of a Pi-type shawl but to wear it, it has to be folded over (same deal with the traditional Shetland shawls) thus (in my opinion) obscuring the design work.  A shape that can be worn unfolded wouldn’t do that and an unjoined circle shape, it seems to me, would sit on the shoulders well and stay in place with a minimum of fuss and bother.

I’ve also been thinking about the mohair I have left from the lace blanket project.  There’s a fair amount of it, including some that seems like it would benefit from a color change (those two yucky pink ones on the right) - heheh...any excuse to break out the dye pot :) This includes a little better than half of the Purple Haze and all of the Oasis Sunset, which I never did use in the original blanket.  Of course I’m thinking about another blanket, since I am so happy with the first one :) If one is good - wouldn’t two be better?

Have a great week everyone!

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1. i think the oasis sunset deserves to be the centerpiece of something really spectacular- heck, it could just recline gracefully in a glass bowl and you could gaze at it whenever you needed a blast of color dueing the winter months-

   have you considered finding a pattern for a cape or capelet and using the shaping from that along with your pretty lace ddesigning to get the shape you might be looking for in your shawl? i think you might be able to get the ‘drape’ of a circular shawl without having to double it and still maintain the integrity of the lace patterning- you’re right about the circular shawls, they do lose some of their definition when folded for wear- well, you know i lack the ‘designer gene’ so that’s about all i can come up with in the way of ideas- my middle name isn’t ‘lemming’ for nothing!!

   stay happy-

   Posted by  on  09/18  at  11:18 AM
   Location : right here- waving at you...



2. Barb - I do want to use the Oasis Sunset and I guess that was something that struck me when I was looking over the yarn this morning.  I don’t want it to languish in the stash - I want it out where I can see it!  Of course your glass bowl solution would work for that too :)

   Posted by Robbyn  on  09/18  at  12:46 PM
   Location : Thinking about the next dye project...



3. Robbyn, try Googling Farose shawls (or variants thereof - I’m not positive on the spelling).  That might start you down the road to the shape you’re going for.

   Posted by Colleen  on  09/18  at  10:01 PM
   Location : don't tell anyone I'm not doing homework...



4. Colleen - Thanks; I know about Faroese shawls and you know, for some reason, the shape doesn’t appeal to me.  Dunno, I just don’t find it aesthetically pleasing.

   I’m weird other ways too :)

   Posted by Robbyn  on  09/18  at  10:42 PM
   Location :

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