Thanks go to Elaine for her excellent suggestions of the Barbara Walker books for stitch patterns. Friday, while waiting for the DBA to do his magic, I made quite a few phone calls to find the Walker books. After exhausting my poor dialing finger, I was able to find the one and only yarn store in Manhattan that still had them in stock. Quite a number of them had them on order and were expecting them in any day now. One had books three and four only in stock. I really wanted either the first or the second. I even went so far as to check {gasp} the library system for them. I did locate both the first and the second at the same library and was planning them into the afternoon. While I had an old library card, I’m pretty sure it isn’t valid anymore and had to factor in a visit to my local library to get a new card before hitting the sharing library to take the book out. When I had all but fully resigned myself to borrowing the books, I made one last phone call to The Yarn Co. to find they had all four books in stock. Armed with my subway map, I headed uptown. Cute little store, quite a bit of high end yarns and as promised all the Walker books. I came out with books one and two. With little time to spare either as I finished the center square of Birchington on the train home.
Unfortunately, the trip uptown took longer than I expected and I missed my train home. I had to cancel my appointment with the orthopedist because there was no way to get there on time. That is the down side of the commute. I spent the bonus time with the Walker books, and the two other Shetland lace books in my collection, plotting out the borders for Birchington. I downloaded a knitter’s font and worked up a chart for myself of the three different stitches that I’m going to use, and how they can be best worked in a section that grows by two stitches every other row. I’ve started using the Quatrefoil Eyelets and will be doing a decent section of those. I wanted something that wasn’t too open, nor too complicated to compliment the center. The pictures of the two lace patterns in the books looked very nicely together and having finished one repeat already, I must say the pictures didn’t lie. I need to pull out the Shetland Lace book again to get the standard % formula for a square Shetland shawl for the center to the outer.
Craft on!
9 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Aug 15, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Very nice!
2 Maryellen // Aug 15, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Is Birchinton a shawl or a sweater? Does anyone knit lace sweaters?
3 Elaine // Aug 15, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Birchington is gonna rock! So is that trip to the city. Um…about those Shetland lace books…those happen to be two I dont’ have….so when you aren’t using them, I’d sure love to see em.
buddy ole pal 
4 Danielle // Aug 15, 2005 at 4:59 pm
Risa, what do you think of the Walker books? I have the first treasury (ahem, my mother in law owns it and I keep borrowing it from her). I am going to buy one of the treasuries for myself and I am debating if I should buy the first one since I know I like it, or the second one so that we have twice the resources in the family. Unfortunately, due to financial resources, I will only be buying one book right now! What do you think?
5 Nancy // Aug 15, 2005 at 8:25 pm
Good home library additions. I’ve used mine already. Makes me (at least) feel like such a “real” knitter (not trying to flame here).
Birchington is looking great so far. I know what your wearing to Rhinebeck!
6 Nancy // Aug 15, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Oh thanks (sarcasm dripping) … now I own the Eris pattern – guess I’d better do something with it huh?
What yarn are you thinking? Wonder if the special buy Jaeger Aran would work? What was the gauge on the kid sweater you did? Questions questions.
7 Lynne S of Oz // Aug 16, 2005 at 3:53 am
Nice shawl in progress! And I know about how commutes always take longer than expected. Eg it should take 20 minutes to get from my work to the spinners’ guild but it always takes at least double that. Ooops.
8 Laurie // Aug 16, 2005 at 7:29 am
Nice shawl. A guarantee you will have the ONLY one like it in the Rhinebeck and knitting universe. Lovely work.
9 Elsie // Aug 16, 2005 at 8:21 am
the birch looks great Risa! I am doing the Kiri in Jaggerspun Zephyr at the moment. This is a practice the pattern shawl for me and then I will work it up in what else? Kidsilk Haze.