Summit

So now the cat is out of the box.



I'm in Knitty!

Sock Summit was so amazing, just walking around. Every other minute I saw some sweater or shawl that made me say ooooo! I have a bunch of slips of paper with names of yarn or patterns that I brought back, things I thought were awesome.

And then I saw Sue at the Ravelry party. She had this white sweater on that was mind boggling. I mean WTF. How the heck? Wha? People were talking and pointing, How do you DO that? Is it increasing and decreasing? what? I've seen a lot of knitting, and I'd never seen *anything* like that.

I went up and asked her and she told me her story. She was a perfectly lovely woman. I can't remember all of the details of her story anymore, but it involved buying this sweater on vacation somewhere, and that it had been machine made. And also that apparently someone (a vendor?) told her you can't knit that by hand.

WAT?

Yes you can. There's nothing a knitting machine can do that a person can't do. I was sure of it (and so was she, though she didn't know how). She really wanted someone to figure it out.

I'd started a sock and didn't like it anyway so I was going to frog it. I whipped the yarn out and started playing around. I swear I could feel my fingers tingling. I had to go back to her sweater and look at it a few times, but I thought I had it figured out.


This is my friend Carol who is an awesome knitter and who was a fantastic sport and willing to pose for pictures in a tank top in late November. I was wearing gloves and a hat when she posed for that picture. I sent it to Knitty in December and got back a Yes! Amy wanted me to take more spring like pictures. We had a foot of snow when she said that, but I told her I'd give it a shot. Carol was again a sport and we trucked all over town looking for a greenhouse or something as a background. The problem with greenhouses is they're all glass. It may be warmer in there but it's still obviously winter.

I finally took these:

I kind of love this one with the motion.





The only one that made it in was this last one, which I took in my kitchen!

Thank you to everyone who sent congratulations! I must admit I'm terribly proud of it and very relieved to be able to talk about it. It made me feel incredibly clever.

Some people have asked me about substituting yarn, and how much was used. You should be able to substitute yarns pretty easy. This yarn was sport weight. It felt only slightly heavier than fingering which I think would work fine, maybe on 1 size smaller needles.

The shawl itself weighs 6.8 oz, which calculates out to 765 yards used. If you use a smaller gauge you would need to do more columns and rows to get the same size shawl, so you might need a bit more, but I think 200g of sock yarn would be plenty to make that size.

Part of what makes the shawl hang the way it does is the weight of that particular yarn though. I think it will feel quite different if made with 100% wool. I would look for something with at least some silk, bamboo, linen etc content if you want the same drape.

Edited because I forgot to mention, DO NOT be afraid of the crochet hook called for in the instructions. You only need it to do some chain stitches in the bind off (and you can even do it with needles if you prefer). I'm going to post a video of how to do that in the next week, hopefully.