Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Upon completion of the Danish Sea Shawl, I started seeing how small variables affected the outcome.  Changing up at the 1/3 point can do that for you, yanno?  On speaking with a customer at the shop that's larger than I am, we discussed how she sought a shawl that had more front-coverage than the typical flat-edged shawl.  All I could do was to (1) tell her I may have a solution, (2) offer her the Danish Sea Shawl, (3) doodle for her the full-Danish option, (5) ask her to come back after the 2nd shawl had been completed.

Almost side-by-side shots of both shawls being worn (by me) to follow. (At the smallest iteration of photo blogspot will allow me, they're still too wide to fit next to each other.  And I'm really not feeling a bout with PhotoShop at this time of night.  Maybe later... Problem fixed by tinkering with blog dimensions jan2011.)

For some reason, both shawls sit lower in the photo than they normally do.  Generally the blue shawl sits so that the edges are a 1/2 inch below the black band of my tank top.  With wear, the green shawl tries to climb up my shoulders so that there's a bit of a roll of fabric near the neckline.  It took a good tug outside both shoulders & then at the tip of the bottom to get it to sit perfectly like that.

Anyway, right off the bat, you can see that the neckline of the blue is more open than that of the green.  That comes from the accidental batch of slower increases at the center/beginning of the blue shawl.  The next shawl won't be quite as wide as that, but you get the idea of what I'm going for.  The stripes on the green shawl come from the alternation between yarns.  The single skein of CashSilk created the top triangle on the blue shawl.

In the last post, I referred to the green shawl as the "RealTree Camo Wind Armor".  If you've known a southern hunter within the last decade or so, you know what I'm referring to.  If you don't, "RealTree" is the brand name of a specific kind of camoflauge that uses a print that looks like, well, real trees.

It's not the awkward blotches of old school military forest camoflauge, but a more highly patterned print that ostensibly breaks up the visual field allowing blahblahblaBLAHblahblaaarg.  You get the point.  It's a name brand camoflauge that markets to humans, not to deer.  But it seems to be fairly effective against a background of Eleagnus bushes...

The "Wind Armor" part comes from the fact that the whole thing was knit with DK to worsted weight yarns held double on (mostly) a size 9 needle.  It's practically thick enough to stand up on it's own, and works well as a shield against the autumn wind generated by riding around the Lowcountry in a convertible.

Being a single, my spare bed isn't large enough for me to get a good single shot of the shawl spread out over a neutral background, so I offer you a slightly curled photo...

Here you can see how it curls up into a more heart-like outline.  The tie-cords were again crocheted chains braided together then knotted at the end.

Next up on the shawl docket will most likely be a brown shawl made of my mother's frogged Moebius.  She initially wanted something that looked like a fur, and the buttonholes *totally* wrecked the effect.  After trying on both the blue & the green, she OK'd a re-work of my first shawl for her.

Until then, I work on projects to send to Kitty.

In Shawl Insanity

So last winter, I went to visit Kitty & Arne in Eckernfoerde.  In the process, I birthed the Twin Monstrosities of Awesome that are my red leggings.  Because I needed something to wear for the cold, right?  I also took over a suitcase literally half-filled with an explosion of color in the form of warmth-giving expressions of Love.  (Which makes more sense if you know how awkward I am about showing affection.)

A few years ago, I came to the realization that my brain doesn't generate "Art" as most people perceive it.  In my head, Beauty has true value only if it has at least some form of Utility.  Sometimes the utility may lie simply in the mathematical acrobatics necessary to make it happen.  But if you can start with aiming at creation of a tool, start running up the hill of mental ninja skillz, and end with several examples of Woolen Math Gone Awesome?  It's deserving of a ::happydance::, to say the least.

So asking Kitty what sort of things would work well for her, she mentioned coming across some examples of traditional Danish tie shawls.  Lust auf Farben has some fantastic photos of them.  (Check out "STR 11" specifically.)  Those feature what looks like an I-cord edging & braided ties.

Now, I could have just bought the pattern & sorted it out from there, right? ::ahem::  Yeah.  Right.  Instead, I had to sit down with a similar garter-stitch shawl at the shop, pore over the photos & links to every pattern that Ravelry offered up in return for "danish shawl", & then try to determine the best-fit method of getting what I wanted.  One month & over 2000 yards of project-specific yarn later, I have some Good Sh*t to show for it.

First came the Danish Sea Shawl (say *that* three times fast) in blues.  I had found 660 yards of run-of-the-mill blue variegated worsted wool for deal so obnoxiously good that I momentarily ignored the fact that I work for a yarn shop.  I mean, it's a test-drive, right?  That's going to be sent overseas, right?  I already knew I'd be keeping it out of the shop, since the yarn came from elsewhere, but on top of that, it was going to be almost half a mile of garter stitch.  Optimal set of circumstances for drunken/TV knitting.

Hand-winding said worsted wool, I realized that being cheap wool, it felt like... well, cheap wool.  But it's blue...  Rooting around in the wooden blue bin, I found not only a single skein of periwinkle Laines du Nord CashSilk (69 yeards), but later what appeared to be a skein & a half of sky-blue Rowan KidSilk Haze.  Looking back, these made up part of my original Ravatar, so they've been living in my house rent-free for at least 2 years now.  ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Beginning to Bust the Stash. 

As I powered through the end of the CashSilk, I found the KidSilk & started carrying it along.  When the good stuff ran out, I picked up the worsted wool in its place & kept going with the mohair.  At the point of that first picture, I began to realize that I wasn't increasing fast enough.  As it was, I'd end up with a flat-top shawl, & I needed a curly-tipped shawl.  Time to up the ante, and there's no point in turning back now: just start increasing more.

Spread out over 4+ circs to see the shape-in-progress

I had been increasing 4 times every 2nd row (1x on the edge, 2x in the center, 1x on the other edge, knit back even).  Kicking it into overdrive meant 6 times every 2nd row: (2x on the edge, 2x in the center, 2x on the far edge, knit back even).  Here in the 2nd picture, you can kind of see the kink where the super-increases start.

The back of my head encouraged me to put other markers in my work, so when I realized that I was about to run out of the first 220 yard skein of variegated blue yarn, I held along a strand of pale blue Ruca from Aracaunia.  That didn't use all of the scrap that I had, so I did it again at the end of my second skein of 220 yards.  Which is nice, because I have a good visual on where what will end where for later.  Notice the near-halving of the vertical length generated per skein.

As I was trucking along, I got BORED.  Wanting it to go faster, I started using larger & larger needles.  8 to 9 to 10 to 11.  Mostly one per skein.  And as I started to get toward the end, I got to worrying about the bind-off.  As it is, I'm a tight knitter, and my bind-offs are worse.  I've already had problems with a piece being unwearable because of the bind-off alone, so I needed a plan.

Picot edge bind off gave me the stretchiness I needed while giving a nice finished edge.  It sucked up all kinds of yarn, since it involved casting on 2 stitches, then binding off 4 stitches.

With the bitty bit of yarn leftover, I crocheted chains that were later braided together to make the ties.  The end results measure about 10" long, with the trailing tails braided as well on one side for additional length.

Getting a picture of me in my shawl without putting myself in the position of needing to do an hour or two of thorough cleaning is a fair task.  I've got to post on the RealTree Camo Wind Armor shawl, so I'll see what I can get together when that comes around.