Actual progress

Yesterday I had a 3 hour sojourn at a track meet. As it was run in a rather plodding manner (not the runners, the organizers), and my running child only in a few events, there was a whole lotta knitting time.

And fun knitting time it was, too. I worked exclusively on this:

It's my Shetland shawl, whose design I worked out last summer (truly. Last summer) and which languished unattended until now. No need to rehash my slump nor my constrained time the last several months. What was joyful was to pick it up and re-discover how much I love to work on it.

Last evening I found myself occasionally stretching it out to be sure I like it as much as I think.

This is something I do a lot with lace. It is so totally transformed by blocking, it feels like a completely different sort of thing altogether while one is knitting it.

So here it is:

This is the center (or part of it anyway, it would fall off the needle if I stretched the whole thing out). After the center square is finished, I will pick up stitches all the way around and knit wide (gorgeous, but I'm biased) borders outwards. Then knit an edging on, all the way around, attaching it as I go. No seams. The cast-on edge (on a string in above photo, at the bottom) is provisionally done so no cast on either.

Shetlanders traditionally did things slightly differently. When one knits on a collection of double pointed needles (even the long ones traditionally used in the Shetlands) rather than on a circular needle, it is a lot easier to do things their way than the way I have chosen.

However, stretching it out revealed that it is going to be enormous. (Yes I did a swatch, quite a few in fact. Yes I measured, counted and planned it. Yes it is the size I planned. But still I have been hit with: it is going to be massive)

What was I thinking.

Naturally, this generates a new anxiety: running out of yarn.

There's always something.

Finally, a very little bit of progress on the Earth Stripe Wrap:

This is something a group of friends lured me into. (Not my fault, of course) The colors are subtle yet gorgeous, since Kaffe Fassett is truly the King of Color. The yarn is Kid Silk Haze. I have mentioned this project in the past but, my word, such a long-ago past that I think I need to re-intro it.

You can probably tell I am still embarrassed at all my recent radio silence.

It's good to be back.