Shawl

Two years ago when I was in EM's class for the Level 1 in the Master Spinner's program the instructor gave us a shawl pattern that was her own. We were challenged to go home and make one over the year and enter it in the following year's fashion show. I made one and promptly sold it. This is it...

It is the one on the left. Sorry it is not a better picture.

Anyway, I started right away knitting a new one and I decided this time I would use a stranded knitting technique and so it began. It has been an odyssey, I assure you, because even though it is still not finished, there is quite a story that ended yesterday... well,... sort of!

I have quite a bit of my shawl completed but not as much as I would like. This shawl, I feel is a real work of art. It all started when I was in Level 1 and tried on one of EM's shawls and felt that it was the drapiest and most lovely fitting shawl that I had ever tried on. I'm a big girl and finding things that fit nicely is often a challenge. (I get my biggness from my Dad!) So I can safely say that when I tried on that shawl, and it fit me so nicely, and it felt good and looked... well... great, I was enthusiastic to say the least.

I got right on it and did the Rainbow shawl in the above picture. Knit in a combination of Polwarth and alpaca, it was soft and lovely and sumptuous. But it also was pretty simple. I had knit some rovings that I had purchased from Rovings in Manitoba that were already varigated and spun it all single ply then I spun brown alpaca and in singles and plied the two singles together to get a nice two ply yarn that kept the look of the varigated wool rovings. I called it the Rainbow Shawl. However, I now wanted more of a challenge and so I embarked upon a new shawl in the same pattern but with a different take on it. I decided to knit a Fair Isle style shawl using the same increases so it would have the same drapey feel and using purple and white as the basis for my colour combinations.

I started in right away because I had some lovely purple and white yarn already spun and though I knew it wouldn't be enough to complete the shawl I thought I would be able to spin and knit at the same time. I knit about 18 inches when I ran into problems. Up to that point I had been knitting and changing my Fair Isle style every ten to twenty rows. It was looking lovely and I was pleased with it but I wanted more of a challenge. That's when I started to go through my old knitting magazines.

I have been a collector of Vogue Knitting magazines since back in the eighties when Vogue Knitting was still quite new. I keep them because many of the patterns are classic, adaptable, and clear. Vogue does a very nice job of printing patterns that anyone can use. I think it is by far the best knitting magazine on the market. And believe me when I say I have tried a lot over the years. Not even Interweave Knits comes close and that is saying something because Interweave Knits is awesome.

Anyway I digress.... In the
1990-91 winter edition of Vogue Knitting magazine there is a sweater pattern by Perry Ellis (remember him???) that has a divine city skyline in a two stranded pattern that I have always thought I would incorporate into something that I knit. It is lovely.

So back to the shawl.... I came up with the idea of incorporating that city skyline into my purple and white shawl. I went looking through my stacks of knitting magazines which at that time I kept in my bedroom. I found it after much perusing and getting sidetracked by other divine patterns that I had forgotten about. I then laid it on the headboard of my bed and promptly forgot about it because I went off to do something else..... have you ever done that? Yes... I thought so.

A few days later when I had time for knitting I went to get the magazine which I had laid on my headboard.... (it is a bookcase headboard) that's when all hell broke loose. The magazine was gone. Now my house is ruled by the goddess Chaos, and losing something is not the end of the world.... usually a few days later it turns up in another most obvious place. (Remember Hubby's truck key that I lost after returning from Olds last month..... we never found it but we did find the set of house, car, school, and other keys that he lost two years ago!!!) see what I mean. Eventually, things turn up. But this was a horror because I wanted to knit that pattern and I wanted to knit that pattern NOW!

Well I didn't knit that pattern and all year through the Level 2 (last year) the shawl languished in my knitting bag collecting dust. Every so often I would pick up the knitting bag and think, I should just get on with it.... I don't have to knit a cityscape on this shawl... I can knit anything. but that cityscape haunted me and I knew I would regret not knitting the cityscape of my dreams into that shawl. I turned the house upside down looking for my Vogue Knitting magazine with my cityscape pattern..... I pulled out my bed and looked under it. (This is no small task since it weighs an elephant!) But I did not find that magazine.

Spring came and the infamous reno began... we cleared the top story of the house and still there was no sign of the magazine. I lost hope. This time I really had lost something. I could only think that it got picked up with other papers and went out in the recycling.... I even emailed Vogue to see if I could get a copy of the old pattern... they didn't respond (they need to beef up their customer service if they want it to be as good as the magazine is)! By this time I had begun to despair if I would ever knit my cityscape. I lost hope. I was defeated..... well... not quite. I just needed some graph paper and a pencil and I would do my own cityscape.... but it wouldn't have a bridge alight with faerie lights.... and it wouldn't be... well... just perfect.... (sigh)!

I didn't have the heart I'm afraid, to come up with my own cityscape, and so I thought that maybe I should just carry on in Fair Isle x's and o's, drifting from one pattern to the next. I got out my Fair Isle patterns and my graph paper but there it sat not being enthused over.

Yesterday, I decided to clean the living room... I mean clean it really good. Under the steps are a set of cabinets that can be moved and manipulated into many shapes and sizes. They can be stacked, or put side by side. They can be separated and moved to any part of the room. We keep catalogues and books and liquor and gift wrap in these cabinets. I hadn't cleaned out the catalugues in over a year and so the task lay on my shoulders to go through the catalogues and get rid of everything out of date. I started in and was surprised to discover that Hubby had been shoving my Spin-off magazines in those cabinets..... and among it was... low and behold.... Vogue Knitting from winter 1990-91 Perry Ellis Cityscape pattern #19... woo hoo!!

Shawl here I come!