I was happily chugging away on my Birch Take 3 when what happens? Elaine posts a challenge on the EZasPi group. Why would she post a challenge? Well, a number of us are seriously contemplating frogging our Stonington’s completely and reallocating the yarn for something different, myself included. Poor Stonington is sitting there, languishing, in my "On the Needles" project list since 4/19. Like the sad, untouched sock, if it isn’t being worked on, its better served being ripped. Now add in the fact that a couple of us were now discussing Birch and Kiri patterns and comparing Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze and Madil Kid Seta. Elaine, the evil one, posted this:
..here’s a scandinavian-design-knitted-with-fingering-weight gauntlett
dropped for you.
Birch knits from the large diagnal to the point. Kiri is the same
pattern knitted from the point to the diagnal. I double dog dare one of
you to knit both together into a large square and then pick up the
stitches around the edge and knit a border in the style of a Shetland
hap shawl.
Basically, this would wind up as a much more ‘interesting’ Stonington.
Anyone want to take up my DOUBLE DOG DARE?
And if that weren’t enough, she follows it up with a prize of 6 handmade austrian crystal stitchmarkers for the first posted picture of a finished shawl. Since I’m just loving Birch and truly crazy, I chose to ignore all the current WIPS and take up the challenge. Since I don’t have enough of the KSH in Blushes (currently being used for Birchx3) nor of the Moss Kid Seta to finish essentially a double Birch, I had choices to make. As this is a race, it would have to be stash yarn, as mixing the KS and the KSH was not an option, yuppy flashbacks and all that, nor could I waste valuable knitting time waiting for a package. Thank goodness I have a decent stash, which includes no less than 3 4 cones of Kid Mohair from Silk City in White, Brown, Pink and this melange of colors that I did try for the Pi shawl and rejected as being too busy. Now the Brown and the Pink have both been used to make shawls while the white has been sitting unused for I would suspect years as I can’t for the life of me remember when I bought it, probably during my last full blown lace phase of 1999. I pulled the three cones of solid colors out of the twins room (all coned yarn still lives there) as I put them down last night and began swatching. Conveniently, my last purchase from Knitpicks had arrived and my brandy new Addi Natura was in the package.
I started swatching with the white…
I started with a known quantity, Birch, as I’ve already cast that bugger on three times and swatched two other for it so the pattern is well established in my head. The Silk City mohair is a good substitute for the KSH as it is the same grist, maybe a bit fuzzier and has nylon in place of the silk (from what my googling was able to return as the label is a bit sparse on the cone). In short order I finished my swatch and dutifully took a picture for you all. I was very happy at how the lace appeared in the yarn and as I’m lacking in a white shawl, I’m content with the yarn choice. You can see from the bottom edge of the cone, with the remote thrown in for scale, that I don’t have to worry about running out of yarn. After taking this picture, I went to the cast on edge and picked up the stitches to work a second Birch in the other direction to form a square. I didn’t like the look of it and pulled it out.
Take two.
I then pulled out the printed copy of the Kiri pattern that I dutifully made at the office before leaving. For some reason I had it in my head that Kiri worked from Point up to the shoulders. If this was the case, I could Kiri up and then Birch down, modifying for that strip down the middle of Kiri. Yeah. Not so fast. My little picture with Baron posing with the "swatch" kind of shows that it doesn’t have a point that I expected. No I didn’t blow the pattern. I checked that and started again. Its more insidious than that and pretty obvious if you read the intro to the damn thing. It is worked from the shoulder down but in shetland shawl style where it grows wider and forms a triangle with the cast on stitches forming the center of the shoulder edge. Much the same way as my icelandic shawl was knitted. While a beautiful shawl and way more satisfying than casting on 299 stitches this too wouldn’t work to create something Stonington style.
What’s a crazy fiber lady to do? Take three…
Draft her own version where it starts in one corner and works it way to the center and back down to the corner. I spent some time with my knitting grid paper, a pencil, eraser (wish I had a better one) and generated my own chart. It is based on a bit of Kiri and a bit of Birch. I need to swatch it but it looks good on paper and all stitches are accounted for. Swatching is in the cards for this afternoon’s commute home.
On a more serious note, I was deeply saddened by the events this morning in London. My heart goes out to those injured and condolences to those lost. I won’t go into the misguided politics of extremists who believe that their message is being heard by acts such as these. I won’t pretend that I was less than happy to be a mass commuter today. So I shall leave it with a tear and a plea for a more peaceful world that I can raise my children in.
Craft on.
