One Brooklyn Tweed Project Finished/Another to Begin

This is the Juneberry Triangle, designed by Jared Flood, and knit from Shelter, Wool Socks color yarn. I thought I would NEVER finish it. It is the most difficult, intricate project I have ever made.
The bobbles don't really show well, but there are bobbles. I guarantee, there ARE bobbles. I won't be making those again any time soon. They aren't difficult; they are, for some reason, annoying. Or I'm too impatient with them.

This is BT's newest yarn, Loft, color Camper. It is made from the same wools and with the same process as Shelter, but it is fingering weight. So I'm off to make another lace project called Pei, designed by Michele Wang, and while it is lace, it is much, much easier lace than the lace in the Juneberry.
I need a break.

Blocking

With a little help from Baxter, again. He waded around in the bathtub while the shawl soaked and then tried to roll around on the wet shawl as I stretched it out. I evicted him from the room.

This is---FINALLY---the Juneberry Triangle, designed by Jared Flood, and made from his Shelter Yarn, wool socks color. He wrote an entire blog post about how the yarn is spun and all I understand is that is is a process that keeps the yarn very light. This shawl is light as air even though it's worsted weight wool. It is the most complicated knitting I have ever done; it had five...count them...FIVE charts. And no safety rows---like purl all wrong side rows. Nope. Every row had a pattern. But I do think it's pretty and even though there are probably mistakes in it, and maybe a zig where there should be a zag, I think I love it.

I'll know more when it's dry and I can actually put it on.

I had better love it....

137 Stitches

That is how many stitches I am supposed to have once I have finished Chart B of the Juneberry Triangle Shawl, and I just counted and that is how many I have! Victory is mine. And now I have to take back the words "I will never knit from a chart." As I have been told many times, it really IS easier to read a chart than it is to read stitch-by-stitch instructions. Now I consider myself a chart-knitter and worlds of lace are open to me. And no, this isn't the chart from Juneberry Triangle. I couldn't post that unless I wanted to risk going to prison for copyright violations, and I'm pretty sure that while they might allow yarn in prison, they probably don't allow knitting needles. I think those could be used to shank someone, if shank also means to stab with a needle and not just with a knife. My knowledge of prison argot comes from Law and Order and they haven't specifically covered knitting needles and shanking. This diagram I can post as long as I say it's from Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog, by Kitty Burns Florey. It is an offbeat history of diagramming sentences. And yes, I do own it; and yes, I have read it, cover to cover; and yes, I really enjoyed it. Go ahead and snicker, if you like. The un-diagrammed sentence says, "Whenever a man in the banking profession announced his marriage to a circus pinhead, it was the custom for friends to present him with a bellows and a three-year supply of wax fruit." Just in case you wondered. But back to knitting. I can't show the chart, but I can show the sort-of triangle.

The picture below shows the lifelines or safety lines. I decided early on that I definitely needed them.
In fact, I have learned several things about knitting lace:

Safety lines---use them.

Stitch markers to define repeats---use them!!! If I don't I could be a stitch short for a repeat section and just blithely knit along, unknowingly taking a stitch from the next section. And then from the next, and then from the next, and at the end of the row...%$^&*(

Count stitches, very, very often...especially on a pattern like this one, where the purl rows have pattern in them instead of just being plain old purl rows. (Mean designers)

Really, really pay attention to which direction the pattern needs to be read from. The first time I used a chart, for the Autumn Leaves Fingerless Mitts, the chart was always read from right to left because the gloves were knit on double point needles. This triangle is knit on a long circular needle and so the chart lines are read alternately from right to left, then left to right. It's not fun to take out a row of knitting after I discover that I've just knit an entire row from the wrong direction.

Slip, slip, purl: Whoever thought that stitch up was a sadist.

That might be all I've learned so far.

On to chart C!!!

Gimme Shelter!

said knittergran, and here it is! Older daughter called me from Hill Country Weavers a week or so ago and said, "I'm standing in front of Shelter. Would you like some?" Well, yes, please! And here it is - it arrived in today's mail. Color: wool socks. I love it and it's going to be the Juneberry Triangle by Brooklyn Tweed.

BUT, it arrived just as I had finally conquered the Summit Shawl instructions. Yay! I ripped out what I had done over the weekend and started over. Success!


Now I'm sure that the Shelter yarn and the Tess Designer Yarns Raw Silk will have to battle for my attention. But this should be easy, juggling these two projects, since the Summit Shawl is said by some knitters on Ravelry to be boring, and the Juneberry Triangle has five different charts and looks pretty intimidating to me. So I can switch back and forth, as the spirit moves me, of course.