Taj Mahal Shawl

The story of a knitter, a yarn of destiny and a project that sprang out of nowhere.

Every project has a story. Or at least that is what I’d like to think. Even when it doesn’t I am enough of a storyteller to just make something up, embellishing the little glimmers of thought that existed in my mind to craft a reason as to why I spent hours crafting something which the outside world will see as ‘just another hat’ or ‘just an other scarf’ or ‘why don’t you just buy them from Wal-Mart’ pair of socks.

Fortunately I don’t have to embellish much on this one. It has a story and a pretty decent one at that. Or at least one that tells of a knitters connection to yarn in a way she cannot describe and might give a clue to yarn shop owners on how to get someone to buy their wares even if they weren’t considering buying anything in the first place.

So lets start with the basics. This, technically isn’t my first shawl. But it is my first traditional shawl: lace, shaping, thin yarn, blocking, the whole nine. Some may call it a shawlette as it is, in fact, decently small. Fine by me. I don’t wear normal shawls and fully intend to wear this as a scarf with the point in the front and the end gracefully draped about my neck. It accommodates my insane desire to wear V-necks in the middle of Wisconsin winters.

It didn’t start with any intention to make this shawl. It started with a late-night yarn purchase one summer evening whilst I was trying to chase away the ‘help me, my crew and I work with idiots’ doldrums. That purchase netted me 2 self-striping rainbow sock maki from Play at Life fiberarts, in a delicious hand-dyed MCN. Once I had the maki in hand and was fondling their beautiful strands I wondered ‘what in the hell will I do with these?’ So I turned to my steadfastly awesome knitting bud Squidwidget and asked her. She agreed with my initial inclination that the maki were too lovely to be socks and trampled on, why not make them into a shawl?

Hm…a shawl? What an unusual idea. I’m not big on most shawls. But someone on Ravelry suggested that I might like the Westknits designs… and what do you know? I like Westknits designs. I particularly love the Akimbo pattern. And so I decided that the sock maki needed to become an Akimbo.

The problem? Akimbo uses a contrast color. I am missing that contrast color. I wanted the same yarn type: MCN and wanted a smoky tonal/kettle dyed blend of grey and black. I soon found that black sock yarn is difficult to come by.

This brings us up to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival. Still looking for MCN, I surfed many booths with a lot of lovely yarn, coming back with very little. Finally, as my intrepid friend SquidWidget was spelunking through a sale bin of ??? yarn I wandered off and found an entire booth of sock yarn. Beautiful sock yarn. MCN sock yarn.

And no black.
Ok, there was close to black, but it registered as dark purple. Tonal, but not perfect. I left the booth, dejected back to see if SquidWidget was making it out alive. ??? hundred yards of yarn later we were back walking towards the Sun Valley Fiber booth and once again I was tempted by the yarns. The booth vendor started up a pleasant conversation, handed out Ravelry buttons and in general gave us a reason to stick around her booth a few more minutes. And that’s when I saw it.

“Ocean.”

It was not MCN. But it did catch my eye – and for one of the most foolish reasons. I wanted it because it reminded me of another yarn. It had that same misty, smoky colorway of Aruncania Atacama’s misty blue; sadly discontinued. A color style I rarely see. It reminded me of lazy days spent knitting in Vermont, and my first tentative steps through socks. I knit my Mom bedsocks with that blue, bedsocks that were eventually the unfortunate victims of my aunt’s vicious laundering. And this yarn said that I should buy it.

And I did.

Now what the heck was I going to do with a skein of beautiful fingering weight, non-superwash merino? I even set it on my computer desk, right by the screen so I had to look at it and remember it wanted to be knitted. I vowed not to be that type of knitter who goes to a fiber festival and goes wild… putting up half the stuff she bought for sale in destash a month later. I was going to knit this.

But into what?

“Make a shawl!” someone helpfully suggested. Alright, I wasn’t against shawls, but I didn’t have a pattern in mind, and Akimbo was out. So, time to Ravelry search. Fingering weight, yes. Knit, yes. Shawl, yes. Photo, yes. 400 yards, yes.

This produced some 60 pages of patterns to sift through. I ended up actually clicking on maybe 2 dozen, and with page after page tabbed on my screen, I was coming to the end of the list and saw this pattern.

Small enough to be worn as a scarf? Check. Solidly works with 400 yards? Check. Attractive, interesting lace pattern? Check. Not too frou-frou? Check. Triangle shape, pointy hem, cables and lace and kibbles and bits… Sold!

Literally. Purchased from Ravelry Saturday night and cast on Sunday morning while I was chilling out at my parent’s farm. The cast on took a bit of brain-work. Oh yeah… read ahead dummy. And then we were off and going. I like the charts in this pattern better than the written parts, and almost as a gift when I was halfway through an update of the pattern, fully charted came out – glee!

Now Taj Mahal has been cast off. Her final row is finished, and she lays in that lumpy mess that unblocked shawls take. She is beautiful. Cabled ripples like ocean waves undulate across her, with a yarn that reminds me of a quiet respite from crazy theatre days. I will block her this weekend and wear her with joy, and the prideful sense of accomplishment a knitter only gets from finishing a project crafted from impulse yarn. Oh ho! The non-knitters say. You bought that without even having a plan for it!

Ha ha! This knitter sasses back. I know what I like and I am solid in my beliefs that what I like is usable and beautiful yarn. See? I can find a project for the yarn I buy! And I can make something beautiful from it.

Now if I could only find tonal black MCN…

StashCat

Like a LOLCat, but lazier.

So, I have a new cat. Actually an old cat that is new again.

Hokay, let me try to explain. My mother and I swap cats. She lives on a farm and decided to rescue stray kittens, so she has a lot of cats. More cats than could really be considered normal and a house that is far too clean to have so many cats. I swear she's like a bionic woman when it comes to keeping a clean house with (*ahem*) fifteen cats.

Yes, fifteen.

Stop rolling your eyes, we used to have twenty. (The joke used to be 'I have two, my mother has the other 18 - cats are cheaper in packs of 20...)

Anyways she has a lot of very happy healthy cats in a disturbingly clean house. And when Sultan was a kitten he used to be called Meriadoc (because his brother was Pippin, 'natch) and he was supposed to be my cat. However my first cat, Robin, didn't like Meriadoc. So Robin stayed with me and Meriadoc stayed with my mom, who changed his name to Sultan. Thanks, Mom.

Anyways, after getting gainful employment and an apartment nearby said gainful employment, I wanted a cat with me in the apartment. But Robin is getting weird in his older age and he has decided that he will. Not. Move. Ever. Again. To the point where he hyperventilates and pulls out all of his fur if you try to move him to a new house. So that was a no. Meanwhile Sultan was banished to the basement for peeing on the baseboards (say that five times fast!) because he had dominant male issues.

So my mother sweet talked me into taking Sultan, again. He knows he new name now so I couldn't change it back. However being an only cat means he has had no peeing issues whatsoever. He does, however, believe he is prettier than any other creature on the farm, and he has also decided that my stash is his stash.



This is Herschnerrs Warehouse swag. Yum. I dig the Nob Hill Jewel Sparkle for kid's hats. Sultan prefers it for it's lovely bed-like qualities.

Look at him. He's smirking. Proud that he can shed on my yarn.

Jerk.

Road Trip!

There are very few things on Earth that would possess me to get my butt out of bed at 8am on a Saturday.  They must be Earth shattering (like a fire... in my bed) or tantalizing (like a sci fi convention).  Or maybe they just have the right words in them.

This one started with "Road Trip" continued with "through lovely rural New Hampshire" and ended with "woolen mill".  Somewhere between the beginning and the end the magical word "yarn" came up.

That's the point where my mind did a complete 180 degree turn and I went 'bwuh-huh?'  That word required more explanation.  

     "Oh, it's the Harrisville Woolen Mill" the lady organizing it said.  "They spin their own yarn and they are having a sale."  Uh huh. yeah.  Now I'm listening.  "It's in their old mill building where they have knitting and weaving and spinning classes, and their studio had hanks of their yarn, plus cones and wool by the pound and..." She said alot more, about how they carried Vivian Hoxbro kits and did things with her shadow knitting, but at that point I had really tuned out, and I was already planning on how in the world could I get the day off from work.

It ended up being just as easy as saying "I'm taking Saturday off."  With phase one accomplished, he meticulously planned phase two: get up in time for the road trip.  I am pleased to say phase 2 went off without a snag, so let's just skip directly to the part everyone likes, right?  Pictures and yarn!

The drive was wonderful.  What looked like it was going to be a foggy, rainy day, broke into a fully day of warm spring sunshine.  It was, in a word, radiant.  The trip was smooth: drive on the highway south to Keene, and then on back highways past little towns until you get to Harrisville.  Harrisville was one a small rural settlement in the middle of nowhere that was built around a mill in the late 1700's.  Over 200 years later and it is... a small rural settlement in the middle of nowhere built around a mill.  It is gorgeous.  I would move there in a heartbeat.  If I had a job, that is.

This is basically the downtown.  The white building the the general store, which is alive and thriving, and sells, well, everything you might need.  It's pretty much one of the only stores around, so unless you're taking a trip to one of the larger cities, people shop here for their day to day needs.  On the far left you can see a large brick building - old dormitories for the mill workers, they now serve as dormitories for people who take classes and seminars though the millworks spinning, knitting and weaving programs.  I would love to take a class like that someday.

The studio is in the old mill building, which is built directly over the river (which provided the mill power).  You can hear the rush of the water in the building.  People always mention it, and some tourists ask if that's "the air conditioning going off?"  After you get used to it, it is wonderfully comforting.  (yup, here's a picture of the water, running under the mill buildings!)


And then there is the yarn.  I suppose by some yarn store standards there isn't alot of yarn, because they only sell a few things that aren't their own yarn.  But that's OK.  Their yarn is pretty breathtaking.  That, and they helpfully offer to get any quantity you desire if there isn't enough on the shelves.  I found plenty on the shelves.  This is their New England Shetland - enough of it to die and go to Fair Isle heaven.

(And if you're asking what's so cool about this yarn, what do they make with it, well, here's one of the patterns I have seen recently made with Harrisville New England Shetland.  Drool!)

So then comes the question... did you buy anything?

I, being of extreme self control did not... aw, hell.  It was on sale.  I sure as hell bought yarn!  I did get out of there with under $100 of yarn (a feat most others could not claim) but I bought yarn for that vest above, as well as two more skeins of wool and flax, to beef up the two I already had (which will become a vest!  A lovely vest!) and a skein of silk and wool for my yarn swap partner through ravelry.  

Did I mention I'm going to make that vest up there?  The Eunny Jang Ivy League vest?  I want to run around in circles and squee!  But that would probably make my roommates try to commit me, so I'll settle for lounging in the sun.

Yarn Karma

So I have this theory that karma exists, at least to some small degree; and while I'm a generally unlucky person, I believe in Yarn Karma.

What is Yarn Karma you ask?  Well, quite simply out, it is the belief that if you do a good turn with your yarn, a good turn will come back to you.  From knitting charity hats to prayer shawls to packaging up some of your stash and sending it off in the mail as a special present, sharing yarn means good luck.

Yup.  I said 'sharing yarn.'

I know, there are alot of teriffic knitters out there that can not bear to part with thier stash in the least.  I'm not one of them.  

Now I'm not rich.  Far from it.  I knit with what I can come by, and I don't buy much yarn.  I did win several hundred dollars worth of yarn from a drawing earlier in the year, but by and large alot of my stash comes from donation.  Not that I solicit donations, mind you.  No.  People just give me the yarn.

To date I have gotten: a bag of Firenze from a contest, a garbage bag of Cascade 220 and Lamb's Pride.  A shopping bag of Lamb's Pride bulky, a Wal Mart bag of Lite Lopi, a few skeins of Lime Green Cascade,  two large unlabeled balls of white wool, a gigantic cone of green wool (and I mean gigantic.) and a mystery cone of white fingering weight god knows what fiber.

Why?  you ask.  What makes me so special?  Well, nothing, really.  But way up north in snowy Vermont I belong to a knitting guild.  I am the youngest regular member of the guild by at least 25 years.  I entertain them.  While they knit drop dead gorgeous fair isle sweaters and things straight from the pages of Elizabeth Zimmerman's lovely classic books, I knit devil hats, police tape scarves and crochet beanises.  They find me unusual and amusing.  But I also knit enough difficult things that they have grown to respect my knitting.  They like giving me tips and tricks, passing on wisdom, and gifting me yarn.

I don't know quite why, but I think it has to do with the idea that for many of them thier daughters are my age and they don't knit.  I'm the new hope for the next generation of knitters for them, and because I'm not in a big city, there aren't many other young knitters around.  So they think that I need to keep on knitting, and at swaps or destashing events they just keep handing stuff to me.  Sometimes they even bring small bags of yarn by the local LYS I hang out at.

The problem here?  I work in Vermont seasonally.  In May I have to haul all my crap 1200 miles back to Wisconsin in a 1993 Ford Taurus.

There is only so much yarn that fits into a '93 Ford Taurus.

So I sort through it.  I knit up alot of it.  And I give it to other knitters, too.  I particularly like putting a skein or two into the mail to a friend or acquaintance.  Because snail mail is highly underloved in this day in age, and let's face it.  Everyone loves getting something in the mail that isn't junk or a bill.

And the really funny thing?  Almost every time I send something off, someone gives me yet more yarn!

This teaches me two things: 1. Yarn Karma is real
2. I need more addresses

Yarn Karma: pass it on!!

Holy Mountains of Yarn, Batman!

So, I had mentioned before that a friend was given literally a truckload of cones of yarn. (Well, a pickup truckload, but it's a truck, nonetheless.)

I was allowed to riffle through the yarn and take any cones I might like. Alot of it was acrylic and strange things, but there were a few cones of Shetland wool. Fingering weight and laceweight Shetland wool.

I snatched up a cream cone and a nice grey-green heather cone of yummy yummy wool. I knit them into gauge swatches, and doubled, on size 7 needles it knits up quite lovely. (quite lovely... is that grammatically correct? eh... I'll look that up later.) My intended pattern is from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Vests book - the "Stonewalls" vest. The question was, then, would I have enough yarn?

Well, that was going to be a problem. The cone was ginormous but I needed to use it doubled.

Now I don't have a ball winder. If I can't beg borrow or steal someone else's ball winder I end up slinging the hank over my leg - using the knee to foot span as the yarn holder with the yarn holding leg folded over the non-yarn holding leg in a bizarre yoga type posture. Ohmmm....... It works well for small hanks, like alpaca. I often wind balls in boring places, like when my housemates drag me to karaoke in our rinky-dink town. Trust me, drunk rednecks singing Shania Twain pairs well with mindless ball winding.

But this cone is, as I said, ginormous. There was no way I was going to carefully wind it into however many little center pull balls, even if I didn't have to loop it over my leg. I needed to make a deal... (Insert dastardly rubbing of hands here)

My friend who works at the LYS has a ball winder, and likes winding things with it. She also has a yarn scale. And it so happened that on the day I walked in, she also had a rather irate lady with a felted hat problem. Now the irate lady made a hat out of a lovely brown Bartlett yarn, but she wanted to have it felt down. The Yarn store clerk had advised her not to use Bartlett for felting - it's a tightly spun wool, and while it *is* wool, and will felt, the tightness prevents radical felting. It is a beautiful Fair Isle yarn, but not the best choice for felting, and she was ushered towards many other lovely types of wool that would felt much better. But she didn't listen, and she came back in, mad that her hat didn't felt down enough. She blamed her washing machine for the bad felt job and demanded my friend to felt it for her. And after a long headachey conversation my friend agreed (if only to get the irate lady out of the shop).

When I came in she was lamenting about how she didn’t want to try to felt the hat more. Well me? I love felting things… and I needed a ginormous cone of yarn wound. A light popped on in my head. She likes to wind yarn, I like to felt… if we offered a trade (more dastardly hand rubbing and some curling of an imaginary mustache) we would both be happy.

Ladies and gentlemen… this is why you listen to your helpful friendly yarn shop lady when she tells you a yarn ain’t gonna felt.

This is after one trip through my machine. I put it through twice more and the dryer twice for good measure. It finally fit a large woman’s head, but it was slightly ratty looking. Ah, well… it fit!



But my prize? Check this out! A mountain o’ yarn! I kind of want to try climbing it and yell “ADRIAN!” at the top of my lungs, but I think my roommate might call the funny farm. What the hell, I think I will anyways. Yell “ADRIAN!” that is, not climb the yarn. I don’t want to squoosh the fibers or break the computer desk.

..

...

......


ADRIAAA-AAAAN!

....

Yes, Nate, your roommate is crazy; you can stop staring at me now. I promise I will creep into your room late at night with that big avocado kitchen knife and scare the bejezus out of you if you don’t stop staring at me. Heheheheheh.

Anyways, how much yarn is there? I had been afraid that I didn’t have enough for a vest. Well, there are over 1200 grams of yarn in my mountain… that’s 42 ½ ounces… and likely over 2000 yards.


I think that is enough yarn for a vest.



Score!!!



 

Interior Sunshine

Dear goodness, is the newest LYS nice!  Comfy chairs, full spectrum lighting... it's like a little slice of heaven.  Speaking of... if you have never had a chance to knit in full spectrum lighting, check it out!  You can see the difference in the paint on the walls.  In the back room it's this dirty yellow color, and in the full spectrum its this lovely satiny eggshell color.

Anyways, enough about that.  On to knitting.  I decided to start a brand new pattern, because I don't have yarn in for my other projects.  I even bought yarn to match.  This is from Vogue Knitting (which I'm starting to think that no one should knit from unless it's a scarf or a blanket pattern) oh, 2005ish era.  Falling leaves on a mohair background.  The yarn is yummy - the leaves are "Kathmandu" - Merino/Cashmere/Silk, with laceweight mohair.  I love the look, but the pattern needed to be beaten six ways to sunday.  It lists that the leaves are a 14 row pattern... and them proceeds to only give you 12 of those rows.  C'mon guys... they make editors for a reason!  Anyways, I ended up making an overly large "gauge swatch" - a.k.a. I started the scarf and then had to learn to make choices and correct the pattern as I went, so I started over once I figured out exactly what to do.

     I have faith that this will be marvelous once it is finished.