FO: Tuscany Shawl

Here's the last of the three shawls I knit earlier this year that just recently had their photo shoot.



Pattern: Tuscany Shawl by Amy R. Singer
Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss in Burgundy
Needles: Addi Lace Turbos in US Size 5 / 3.75 mm
Dates: March 19 - April 12, 2008
On Ravelry



This was another knit that I really enjoyed. (What can I say? I love knitting lace.) I used the same yarn as my Kimono Shawl (on Ravelry), as I had plenty left over. I really like the Knitpicks Gloss for lace - it's a fingering weight (although they now have a lace version) made of merino/silk, which is soft, warm, and lovely to knit with. It makes a shawl that is substantial without being heavy or too warm.



The pattern starts at the point of the shawl and works upward. I really like the shape of the shawl - a yarnover increase at each edge on every row makes a narrower traingle than four increases every other row (such as the Shetland Triangle and Lace Leaf Shawl that I just posted) and longer arms or ties on the shawl, as you can knid of see in the pictures just above. I think this shape is better suited for wearing.



It shape of the triangle - a broad canvas, rather than one split by a center column of yarnovers - also shows off the lace pattern quite nicely. I like how the columns of purls outline the shape of the leaves. I think the lace pattern is the same as the Embossed Leaves Socks and Lace Leaf Hat & Scarf (Ravelry links), although I haven't compared patterns to be sure.

Another gift that I'm saving for the holidays, so no further talk of who the recipient might be.

Tuscany Shawl

Okay, so the "on location" pictures in the last post were fun, but they don't really show off how beautiful this lace pattern is. So here are some pictures to remedy that:



Mmm, a bit of bokeh to make lace look all dreamy...



I like how the column of purls at the edge of the lace pattern makes the leaves stand out, and creates a lovely ripple as well.



It's a lovely pattern, isn't it?



I get a lot of knitting done on Wednesdays because I have several meetings where it is okay to knit. I've got nine repeats done now, just two more to go.

Travel Knitting

I'm just back from a trip to the east coast to visit my brother, my partner's brother, and their families. We have two almost-5-year-old nephews (one for each brother) who we do not see nearly enough, and it was a lovely trip.

I decided not to bring my laptop with me so I could be on vacation, really on vacation. So my days were filled with reading, photography, hanging out with family, playing with kids, and knitting. For the trip, I decided to go back to a pattern I tried last summer with a different yarn.


3 repeats in, 3/21/2008

Pattern: Tuscany Shawl by Amy R. Singer
Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss in Burgundy
Needles: US size 5

Yep, this is the same yarn I used on my Kimono Shawl. I had 4 skeins left over, plenty for a shawl. This one is destined to be a gift, and I liked using the yarn, so it was a good travel project.


5 repeats in, 3/23/2008 (taken on the southern Outer Banks, North Carolina)

I've finished 2 & 1/2 lace shawls since I first tried this shawl, and I can really tell that I'm a more accomplished lace knitter now. I'm able to "read" my knitting, which made it very easy to memorized the pattern. I'm being daring and am knitting without a lifeline! The only problem I've encountered is that that pattern has big patches of stockinette stitch, and I don't count the stitches during those sections - I just knit till I reach the part of the pattern that indicates it's time for a yarnover or a decrease - only to discover eight rows later that I made a mistake. I must confess I've mostly been correcting them without going backwards - knitting two or four instead of three together, for example. Amazingly, my perfectionism has mostly been okay with this.


8 repeats in, 3/29/2008 (taken at the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Washington DC)

I actually brought two new lace shawl projects with me, and found myself trying to push through the knitting on Tuscany so that I could start the second shawl. But I remembered that I was on vacation, having fun, and wanted to savor the knitting. So I let the pace be slow. I'm currently at 8 repeats out of 11, and enjoying my way through the shawl.

Knitting Classes

In the last week, I took two knitting classes. First, a Continental Knitting ("picking" rather than "throwing") class at one of my favorite local yarn shops, Acorn Street Shop. Once I got the hang of it, I really liked knitting this way (so efficient! so easy to switch from knit to purl! puts the left-hand to work, giving my right a break!). I'm pretty pleased with how the swatch I knit in class looks - the tension is mostly nice and even, although the ribbing looks pretty bad:



Despite my fondness for the above swatch, I have been a little too scared to try picking with any of my works in progress because I'm afraid my tension may be very different than what I've already knit. Perhaps I can pull out the blanket square that I put aside several weeks back and give that a try. Hmm, or start a new square altogether.

There were only three of us in the class and we progressed so quickly that we were able to try some two-color knitting by the end of the class. I'd never knit with more than one color in a row before - dang, I'm going to want to try Fair Isle now.

Then, I took a morning off work on a lovely sunny Seattle summer day, and took the ferry to Bainbridge Island to take a class at Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. What a fabulous yarn shop! It's fairly large with big windows in front, cozy places to knit, an excellent selection of yarn, and serves and sells tea. Although my commute there was about two hours (drove to work, parked, bus to the ferry, ferry across the Sound, walked up to the shop), I am so in love with the place that I'm sure I'll be back. (I think that they will host tea parties - perhaps for my birthday?) I got there a little early and they let me in to fondle and purchase yarn before the class started.


Handmaiden Sea Silk yarn (70% Silk, 30% Seacell) yarn, which I think is fingering weight? The skeins above are in what I think is the "Lily Pond" colorway, but it wasn't labeled, so I'm not sure.

I've been wanting to knit with Sea Silk yarn for some time, and the opportunity finally arose: a class on how to knit the Tuscany Shawl. Although I'm in the middle of a lace project right now, I'd never knit a triangular shawl before, and since the designer herself, Amy R. Singer, was teaching, I jumped on the opportunity. Amy was quite friendly and fun in person and taught us lots of cool tricks to make the knitting easier - shortcuts so that we wouldn't need the pattern, a way to rip back without things falling all apart (I've already tried this one), and my favorite: a way to loosen then tighten the decreases so that the stitches lay flat. Very cool trick!


The first twenty rows or so of the shawl, which I knit in the class.

Unfortunately, my counts are off right now, and I think I'm going to have to rip back some more...