Color knitting links & inspiration

The Knitfinder resource section is coming along slowly – I’m trying to build it into the be-all and end-all of knitting bookmark collections, so you can start there to find ANY kind of knitting info you happen to be looking for. I’m working on a color knitting resource page now and thought I’d share a few tidbits.

Nanette Blanchard’s blog Knitting in Color has been around since 2003, and it’s full of great information and inspiration for stranded color knitting. You’ll find tutorials, patterns, and lovely photos – Nanette lives in photogenic New Mexico. She’s self-published several how-to booklets including Stranded Color Knitting, Glove Knitting, and Mittens in Color. At left, one of her mitten designs – the lovely Tijeras mittens. Find all her booklets and patterns in her Ravelry shop.

Here’s a great resource from Nanette’s blog: a list of the best yarns for stranded color knitting, organized by weight and linked to their Ravelry pages. Yarns were chosen for their quality and wide color range. The list is a year and a half old; there are some new yarns that would be good additions, like St-Denis Nordique and Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light.

If you’re embarking on your first stranded color project, there are plenty of how-tos out there. There’s a list of the best here.  TECHknitting has a great tutorial series on stranded knitting:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 as well as one on slip-stitch color knitting. If you’ve never been over to TECHknitting, you’ll be amazed at the wealth of information. If you learn better from video, the KnitPicks tutorial section is a good place to start. There’s a collection of colorwork tutorials, including stripes, intarsia, Fair Isle, and color theory. Here’s one showing different methods of handling yarns for stranded knitting.

My friend Janine Bajus aka Feral Knitter is a brilliant colorwork designer and teacher. Her 3-day “Design Your Own Fair Isle” class is scheduled for March 26-28 in Berkeley, California – I don’t know if there’s still space available. There’s also a one-day class in May at Web-sters in Ashland, Oregon.


Here’s a swatch I knit in her class; she teaches a simple swatching technique for evaluating color combinations. This swatch revealed one I hated (the green and yellow in the middle), and several I loved (red and lavender, red and mint green, olive and coral). And you’ll find great tips, patterns, and color inspiration on her blog. Janine’s Celtic Pillows (free PDF from Two Swans Yarns, a great source for Fair Isle yarns and patterns) are meant as a canvas for playing with your own color choices.

There’s going to be an “Around the World” section in the Knitfinder resources, and color knitting leads us right into that. Scotland, Norway, Estonia, Sweden, Turkey, Peru…all have their own color knitting traditions. You’ll find the whole world of color knitting at unionpearl’s Knitting Letters A to Z. Many photos, great writing on knitting traditions, lots of links.

Some more photo inspiration:

Swedish Bohus Stickning on Flickr (read more about Bohus here)
Annemarie Sundbo’s collection of Norwegian mittens, stockings and sweaters
Latvian mitten galleries – from a project associated with the NATO summit in Riga, 2006
Let’s not forget modern colorwork designers: Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably, Alice and Jade Starmore.

More to come when the color knitting page goes live. I’m behind on other work this week, so there will be no pattern roundup tomorrow – look for it again next week. I may move it to Mondays or Tuesdays so I have time to write the posts over the weekend.

Friday pattern roundup

Some of this week’s most original and creative patterns are in a new book from STC Craft, Comfort Knitting and Crochet: Afghans. This book has 27 knitted afghan patterns (and 24 crocheted ones)  by Norah Gaughan, Margery Winter, and the rest of the Berroco design team. There’s an amazing variety of color, texture, and techniques to choose from. You can see photos of all the designs here on the Berroco website. Here are two of my favorites:

Danish Modern

Floret

All the patterns are written for Berroco’s acrylic/nylon blend Comfort® yarn in various weights. If you prefer to knit with natural-fiber yarns, it shouldn’t be difficult to substitute – or to shrink patterns to baby-blanket size. **Edited to add: Berroco is giving away 50 copies of the book, plus yarn - click here to enter the drawing.

Patternfish added its 5,000th pattern this week. This site is a fantastic source for patterns past and present – 40+ new ones added every week. More info about them here. Number 5000 was the Kathy Zimmerman coat in Classic Elite Waterlily on the left, knitted sideways in strong knit-purl texture. There’s also a new stole by Catherine Devine with handsome stylized flowers on a mesh ground, and a ladylike cropped cabled vest by Michelle Porter for Lana Gatto (check out the cable detail around the armholes).

Waterlily Sideways Cardigan

Andrea Dogwood Blossom Wrap

Cable V-Neck Vest

Prices for these patterns range from $4.95 - $6.00 – all available instantly. By the way, did you know you can order Classic Elite yarns directly from their website? Waterlily info/colors here.

Here’s a brand new design from Fiddlesticks Knitting – Flair, a  coat-length  vest in feather-and-fan lace with neat, wide seed-stitch bands. Simple, elegant vertical lines, meant to be closed with a pin. A short version would be very nice too.  The yarn is DK-weight raw silk; there’s a special kit price until April 11. Or, buy the (printed) pattern only for $12.00

More lace – an unusual shawl design from Tiziana Sammuri called In Spring Shawlette.  It’s knitted from the bottom up, shaped as four steep triangles with wide embossed-leaf panels on a lace ground. Available as a Ravelry download for € 4.00 EUR. Requires 600-650 yards of fingering-weight yarn. Tiziana has several other beautiful lace designs in her Ravelry shop.

A small free project: the Honey Cowl from Madelinetosh. Reversible slip-stitch texture pattern shows off the semisolid yarn beautifully. 225-450 yards of DK merino wool, may be made short or long, wide or narrow. This would be lovely in silk or a silk blend, too.

Finally, a couple of months old but new to me, Rachel Russ’s incredibly cute Pixie Poncho, designed for Spud & Chloe Yarns  - it’s published in their leaflet no. 9508. A short hooded, fringed poncho with exuberant colorwork in a cotton-wool blend.

I’m working on a color knitting page for the Knitfinder resource section, which is still in its infancy. I’ll post some of the great links I’ve found for you in a few days. Meanwhile, enjoy this week’s patterns!

Friday pattern roundup

We begin with a pretty new sweater called Manu from Kate Davies. It’s a yoke cardigan in stockinette stitch with a softly gathered neckline and matching gathered patch pockets. Longer length, three-button closure; written for sport or DK weight alpaca or wool/angora/cashmere. You can buy it from Kate’s blog or on Ravelry for £3.50 GBP.

Next, something for men - Janet Szabo’s Cedar Trail Vest from the new issue of Twists and Turns. It’s a handsome button-front vest in worsted-weight cotton/merino blend, with intricate small-scale cable patterning and garter-stitch bands. Would be fine for women too. You can download the issue for $5.00, and there’s a nice women’s pullover in it as well, among other patterns.

More texture: the Hands of Blue fingerless gloves are a free pattern from Lucy Hague – download the PDF file here. Bands of undulating twisted ribbing, a longer length, and pattern options for fingerless mitts, half-fingered or full-fingered gloves. Written for 150 yards of DK-weight yarn; the designer used a bamboo/merino blend.

Now for some color – two patterns from Dutch designers. First, Alyssum from Dutch Knitting Design, a simple triangular shawl designed to show off the color changes of Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn. $7.00, available as a Ravelry download (I don’t see it on the Dutch Knitting Design website yet).
 
These Hiroshige mittens in three colors by Hanneke Sieben are inspired by a Japanese print. A complex chart and some rounds that use all three colors make this project a bit advanced. Lovely – somehow they look wintry and springlike at the same time. Available as a Ravelry download for $3.00. Knitted in Dale Heilo and Cascade 220.

To wrap things up, a spring/summer design, the very pretty Soft Linen Single Gore Skirt by Gudrun Johnston, published in Classic Elite’s Farmer’s Market brochure. Soft Linen is a DK weight wool/linen/alpaca blend. Graceful flared shape, inverted pleat with lacy embossed flowers, and a touch of texture at the yoke and hem. There are several other nice patterns in the brochure.

Enjoy! Until next week.

Vintage Bohus

I spent last Sunday in Susanna Hansson’s Bohus Stickning class at Stitches West. What a great day! Susanna tells the Bohus story, with plenty of slides, shows off her collection of vintage Bohus garments, and gets you started on a pair of Blue Shimmer cuffs. For me, the highlight was the opportunity to see and handle the vintage garments from Susanna’s collection. Here are some photos – click to see closeups. From the 1940s, two designs by Anna-Lisa Mannheimer Lunn:

Blue Eskimo hat

Red Edge cardigan

See the unexpected touch of pink in the Blue Eskimo hat? That photo also shows the tiny gauge – look at the garter-stitch brim. These 40s designs have less of a modern following than the later ones, but I love the retro look of them. Rumor has it that a kit and pattern for The Red Edge is coming soon from Solveig Gustafsson. I’d wear that sweater often.

From the 1950s, three designs by Annika Malmström-Bladini (all from 1957):

 Tobak

Winter Haze (Vinterdis) tam

Lemon cardigan

Tobak (Tobacco) was a cowl-neck pullover with a plain body and color patterning on the neck and cuffs only.  And Lemon – that eye-popping chartreuse body color is quite true, on my monitor at least.

From the 1960s, designs of Kerstin Olsson:

The Green Wood (1960)

Myrten Grön tam (1964)

The New Azalea (Red Egg) (1963)

Mosaik jacket (1967)

And one last 1960s design, Karin Ivarsson’s Large Lace Collar tam from 1960:


The Bohus story is told in detail in Wendy Keele’s excellent book Poems of Color. (The book was recently out of print for a short period; it’s likely to go out of print again soon, possibly for good.) Briefly, it goes like this: in 1937, a group of women, wives of unemployed stone cutters in the Bohus province of Sweden, approached the provincial governor’s wife for help devising a home-based industry that would allow them to help support their families. The governor’s wife was Emma Jacobsson, a highly educated Austrian Jew who had grown up in Vienna and immigrated to Sweden when she married. She took on the project, and after a few false starts, settled on the production of handknit garments – sweaters, hats, mittens and gloves.

Bohus Stickning was born in 1939 and lasted until its closure in 1969. Emma Jacobsson herself was the first designer; just five others were hired over the entire 30 years. Hundreds of knitters worked for Bohus Stickning over the years. They were highly trained and well paid, receiving about 30% of the retail price; they were expected to produce perfectly-knitted garments, but were allowed up to 3 months to finish a sweater.

These were couture garments with a conscious fashion aesthetic. They were marketed as luxury goods; the sweaters sold for around $300 US in the 1950s in stores like Neiman Marcus. Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly were among the celebrities who owned Bohus sweaters. Emma Jacobsson fiercely defended the integrity of the brand through strict quality control (of  the wool, the spinning, the dyeing, and the knitting) and marketing techniques (high pricing, careful choice of sales outlets).

For more on Bohus Stickning, read Poems of Color. If you ever get a chance, take Susanna’s class – there’s nothing like seeing the garments in person, and being able to examine the construction methods. Here’s a link to an online article based on one of Susanna’s lectures – it appeared in Knitch magazine. Unfortunately Radiant Knits: An Enchanting Obsession,  the catalog for the 2009 Bohus exhibit at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, seems to be no longer available. [Edited to add: You can get it from Saga Hill Designs, the website of Wendy J. Johnson, who photographed the Bohus garments for the catalog. Thanks to Ellen for the tip.] That exhibit featured Susanna Hansson’s collection. There’s also a documentary film by Kjell Andersson, made for Swedish Television in 1999. The film is available from Schoolhouse Press – in fact you can order it together with Poems of Color at a 20% discount. There’s also a Flickr pool, with photos of some vintage sweaters I’ve seen nowhere else like this one and this one. Of course, there is a Ravelry group too, moderated by my friend ermabom aka knitsarina.

*Edited to add one more great online article: B is for Bohus, Revisited, an entry in unionpurl's Knitting Abecedarium.

As many of you know, some of the garments are now being reproduced in kit form by master Swedish dyer Solveig Gustafsson. Her yarns and colors are truly beautiful, and the prices are very reasonable. Just go to her website and feast your eyes on the designs she’s made available. Susanna has very generously translated the patterns into English, in return for which she encourages knitters to donate to Doctors Without Borders, in the spirit of Bohus Stickning’s original social support purpose.

I don’t have much to show for my morning of class knitting:
I’m pretty slow with two and three colors at a time on 000 needles. That’s the size I needed to get a gauge of 8.5 stitches to the inch.  The yarn is 50/50 merino and angora. I have to rip this and start over to get a nice cuff, but I plan not only to do that, but to go on and knit gloves. I think they’ll be beautiful.

**3/4/2010: Just uploaded the vintage Bohus photos to Flickr so you can see them even bigger. Click here

Friday pattern roundup

Today I’m inaugurating what I hope will be a weekly feature here on the blog – a roundup of the best new patterns I see each week. Just a few, because I don’t want to overwhelm you!


Let’s start with a free pattern, Mary Rourke’s Lusekofte-sque Mitts. These would be great as a first stranded colorwork project. Sportweight alpaca in two colors, nicely flared cuffs, traditional Norwegian colorwork. Separate charts for the two mitts, so the patterning is symmetrical. Available on Ravelry (free download). This pair was knitted by Liz.

How about a baby sweater? Nikki Van de Car’s free Maile cardigan is simple and incredibly cute. It’s a button-front raglan worked in one piece from the bottom up. Very springy in bright green, with eyelet flowers around the hem and leafy lace along the raglan lines. Tidy garter-stitch edges are just right.  Needs just one 100-gram skein of sock weight yarn. Written in one size, 3 months, but wouldn’t be difficult to size up.

We have to have at least one lace shawl. I love Luiza, new from Jane Araujo. Top-down triangular shawl with unusual, very pretty border at bottom. Requires 450-500 yards of fingering or laceweight yarn; $5.00, available as a Ravelry download.
Now, two patterns from new books. First, whimsical stranded colorwork mittens – with kangaroos on them!  Wonderful. The roos are full of energy - not one chart repeated three times, but three different poses. Appropriately enough, these were designed by Barbara Giguere for a new book by Gail Callahan aka the Kangaroo Dyer: Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece. Go to the Ravelry pattern page for a peek at the palms. And from Nancy Marchant’s new book on brioche stitch, Knitting Brioche, the Haarlem jacket, an elegant striped cardigan in neutral colors that would look good on almost anyone – or on the runway, for that matter. The subtle color play and asymmetrical collar are very chic.
And to finish up, there’s a great new collection from Churchmouse Yarns & Teas in Washington called Churchmouse Classics. Eleven patterns in the group; my favorites are the simple stockinette infinity scarf in Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze, knitted on the bias (Mohair Bias Loop) and a cashmere beret, but all these patterns by Kit Hutchin are winners – there’s a beaded beret in one skein of Koigu, a Koigu linen stitch scarf, and more.  Available either as printed patterns or PDF downloads. You can order directly from Churchmouse.


So there’s some inspiration for the coming week. If you come across something new that you think I should mention, drop me a line – I’ll be glad to hear from you.

I’ll be spending quality time with Bohus sweaters at Stitches West on Sunday – I’m taking Susanna Hansson’s all-day class on them. I’ll report next week – expect beautiful Bohus photos!

Shawl number one

The first of “10 shawls in 2010” is done: Ysolda Teague’s wildly popular Damson (I think I’m the 759th person to post a finished one on Ravelry). Mine is knitted in Malabrigo Sock in Cordovan.

Lovely design – the two double increase lines on the back give it a horseshoe shape that stays on; the small size is very nice, and the contrast between garter-stitch and stockinette sections is really elegant, especially in a yarn with some sheen.

My next shawl wasn’t on my original list: it’s Rosemary Hill’s Brandywine. This is a Haiti relief pattern – $5 from every sale (more than 75%) goes straight to Doctors without Borders. More than 700 patterns have already sold – that’s $3500 donated so far. Can you help Rosemary get to her goal of 10,000 patterns sold?

I’m using Habu Tsumugi silk – a laceweight raw silk tweed.  I was hoping to finish it in time to wear it to Stitches West next weekend, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Here's an in-progress shot:

Review: The Haapsalu Shawl

The Haapsalu Shawl, by Siiri Reimann and Aime Edasi (translated into English by Maret Tamjärv)
Saara Publishing House, 2009 (184 pages)
ISBN 978-9985-9925-9-3
$60.00 – $65.00  US; 19 €  in Europe

If  Nancy Bush’s Knitted Lace of Estonia made you fall in love with Estonian shawls, nupps and all, you’ll want this book for your coffee table. Like hers, this book celebrates the history and traditions of the ethereal shawls from the Estonian resort town of Haapsalu on the Baltic. It was published in Estonia with the direct input of master Haapsalu knitters working today and financial support from the Estonian government and various cultural groups. The financial support shows – it is a positively lavish, well-printed book with many color photographs. 

The Haapsalu Shawl expands on the same territory covered in Knitted Lace of Estonia (Nancy Bush served as consultant and editor for this English translation) with more historical information and more stitch patterns. Wonderful period photos are scattered through the opening chapter on the history of these shawls, knitted for the tourist trade. One page pairs a photo of today’s master knitters seated in a row with their knitting, decked out in lace hats and aprons; below them, a photo of tomorrow’s masters – half a dozen young women from Haapsalu High School with their knitting – bodes well for the future.

Unlike the Nancy Bush book, which has 14 patterns with start-to-finish instructions, The Haapsalu Shawl has no actual shawl patterns in it. Instead, a short but detailed illustrated overview of traditional construction methods gives you all the information you’ll need to knit a scarf or shawl with the stitch patterns you choose from the stitch dictionary. Briefly, the traditional designs consist of a square or rectangular center section in stockinette-stitch lace with a garter-stitch frame, and a separately knitted edging which is sewn onto the finished center section. Square shawls may have a wide lacy border between center section and edging as well.

The edging technique is interesting. Unlike the sideways-knitted lace edgings of the more familiar Shetland shawls, Haapsalu shawl edgings are cast on along what becomes the outer, scalloped edge, and knitted toward the center. This 90-degree difference in the knitting direction creates a whole different look. Traditionally, the cast-on uses two strands of yarn, which makes a bold outline for the outer edge.  Edgings are worked in two halves and joined at two of the four corners (because the tradition predates circular needles, they were not originally worked in the round). There is no mitering of corners; instead, enough stitches are cast on to ease the edging around the corners. Edgings are usually garter-stitch lace, contrasting prettily with the stockinette ground of the center section. Nancy Bush's book suggests alternative, modern ways to knit and attach these edgings.

The technique section of the book is well-written – it tells you how to calculate stitch counts for center section and edging (adding the right number of stitches for corner ease), and specifies the right cast-ons and bind-offs to use, with illustrations. Very detailed instructions are included for sewing the edging to the body of the shawl. There’s also essential information on blocking and on the traditional yarns used. An explanation of the chart symbols used and an illustrated stitch guide round out the technique chapter.

Now for the fun part. Most of the book is devoted to stitch patterns. There are 120 of them; each gets a full page to itself, with a generous, high-quality swatch photo (white wool on medium gray background) and a nice big chart. No written instructions are included. Patterns are grouped into families, interesting because it’s easy to see how small stitch variations alter the look of the swatch. Many of them are nupp-free (nupps apparently are prized as proof that a shawl is hand-knit - knitting machines can't do nupps). There aren’t too many edging patterns – only 9, arranged three to a page to finish the book.

Sprinkled throughout are 22 finished shawls, artfully photographed in full color in varied settings, many in scenic outdoor locations that make me pine for a summer holiday in Haapsalu. Some are modeled by Estonian women of all ages – the acknowledgments charmingly thank “the fair ladies who model the shawls in this book.” The knitter is always credited, welcome evidence of the respect given their work, and thanks to the book’s thoughtful layout, the stitch pattern used always appears on the facing page.

Any lace knitter who’s completed a shawl or two will be able to use this beautiful book to knit a wide variety of square shawls or rectangular stoles, no specific pattern necessary. With a bit of experience, it wouldn’t be too difficult to adapt the techniques to triangular shawls.

The Haapsalu Shawl is available in the U.S. from Schoolhouse Press and Halcyon Yarn, and in Canada from Elann and Needle Arts Book Shop, among others. You can also order it directly from Hobipunkt in Estonia; shipping doubles the cost for a single copy, but it may be worth it if you’re buying more than one. They also sell traditional yarns used by the Haapsalu knitters.

Knitting techniques online - where to start?

Need to learn a new cast-on method, find tips on inserting a zipper in your cardigan, or cut your first steek? Trying to alter a sweater pattern or fix a cable mistake? Or maybe you're just learning to knit, and need videos of the basics.

It's never been easier to get knitting help from the Internet. From the earliest days of blogging, knit bloggers posted great tips and photo tutorials. Now that Internet video is accessible to most people, there's a how-to video for any knitting technique you can think of.

It can be a little bewildering to sort through these resources. They are scattered all over the Web; sites with lots of tutorials tend to be poorly organized (if they are organized at all), and some of the videos in particular are not very good. On the Knitfinder how-to page I've collected the very best of these links and organized them for you by topic, all on one page. It's easy to find exactly what you're looking for--just click on a keyword in the alphabetical list on the left, or use Ctrl F to search the page.

Here are a few more good collections of general knitting help for all levels, from beginner to geek-expert. These not only offer good content, but are reasonably organized so you can find what you need.

KnittingHelp.com
Launched in 2004, Amy and Sheldon Finlay's site is a collection of short, clear technique videos, all free. A great place to start if you're learning to knit. Advanced techniques such as magic loop, Kitchener stitch, stranded knitting and double knitting are here too. Videos are also collected on a CD available for purchase, and there's a glossary of knitting abbreviations and an online discussion forum.

Knit Picks tutorial collection 

Good basic collection covering most techniques beginning to intermediate knitters will need. Includes videos and a glossary of abbreviations. Fairly well arranged; there's an A-Z index of techniques, so it's pretty easy to find what you need. Knit Picks also has a YouTube channel with more than 100 videos.

TECHKnitting
Since 2006, this site has published dozens of in-depth, clear, illustrated explanations of knitting techniques and problems. Everything from basic cast-ons to very detailed analysis of short-row uses and techniques. Invaluable and a bit geeky. Lots of unusual problems and issues are covered. Index of posts by topic is here.

Knitty articles

Knitty has published lots of good technique articles over the years. Archived articles are listed here by topic. Theresa Stenersen's column "Techniques with Theresa" has covered most of the basics; here is a list of subjects. For other Knitty articles on specific techniques, see the Knitfinder how-to page.

Drops Design YouTube channel

90+ technique videos without audio, supplemented with written instructions. If you want to see a technique demonstrated without being distracted by talking, these are for you.

and...great knitting teachers on YouTube

Many knitting luminaries are on YouTube, often in Knitting Daily TV segments. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to find them. Try searching for a favorite teacher's name. Two with channels of their own:

Lucy Neatby has eight great videos on provisional cast-ons, double knitting, bobbles, and "navajo" knitting, among other things. 

Cat Bordhi has 24 videos on sock knitting, moebius knitting, and other techniques. Some real gems among her tips.

Check out the Knitfinder how-tos, and drop me a line if there's a technique you can't find, or you've got a favorite tutorial or video you'd like to see added to the list. I tuck in new links whenever I come across a good one. New today - the "bar none" increase popularized by Meg Swansen, and new color knitting videos from Berroco.

Coming soon: new content for the Knitfinder resource section--look for pages on color knitting and online pattern sources in the next couple of weeks. Also, stay tuned for a new weekly blog feature - the best new patterns available online, from all over the world.

Happy knitting!

A cautionary tale

I'm not very good about swatching (understatement of the year). My last shawl of 2009 was Aestlight from Shetland Trader. Stated pattern gauge is 24 stitches/42 rows to 4" on a 4mm needle - but, and I quote, exact gauge is not crucial. The next time you see that phrase in a pattern, pause and reflect. Did I swatch? No. No fitting issues, why swatch?

I knit Aestlight in Sanguine Gryphon Little Traveller. I had one 560-yard skein, bought at Sock Summit last summer, in a beautiful green that reminds me of oxidized copper. No color name or number on the label. Aestlight is written for two sizes, and the larger requires 550 yards of yarn. You can see where this is going, right?

I cast on for the larger size with a 4mm needle and knitted merrily. About the time I began the sideways lace edging, I began to worry a bit about running out of yarn. At the halfway point of the edging, I realized I might be a gram or two short (thanks to my trusty gram scale). But I hoped for the best, and kept knitting anyway. What else was I going to do? Because of the way the shawl is constructed, I would have had to rip 50% of my work in order to switch back to a smaller size.

This is what I get for being cocky:

My finished shawl measures 68" wide instead of 52", and it's also 2" longer than the pattern dimension. My gauge was 16 stitches/4" instead of 24. I ran out of yarn with 11 edging rows to go. No hope of getting more, with no color name or number - so I headed for the yarn cupboard and pulled out half a dozen bits of green yarn in the right weight. Believe it or not, what you see above was the least jarring alternative.

I do love the finished product. Perfect size, nice drape at this gauge, and the color is gorgeous. No one has remarked on that funny-looking tail yet. I figure I'll just wear the shawl to Stitches West in February and wander around trying to find a better match.

10 Shawls in 2010?

I'm not one for knitting goals or resolutions (or resolutions in general, for that matter), but when I came across the 10 Shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry, I joined right away. Why not? I love shawls. I knit them anyway. One cannot own too many of them, in my opinion. There are already more than 150 shawl patterns in my Ravelry favorites. Last but not least, I wouldn't have to buy a single ball of yarn.

OK, so which 10 shall it be? Usually I decide what to knit on a whim, no long-term planning involved. So thinking about projects I'd like to knit as a group instead of one at a time is interesting. Why not try some different kinds of shawls, and avoid getting stuck in a rut? Minimum two that are all about color, not lace. One stranded colorwork shawl, and one that features texture. I notice I'm not as interested in fancy lacework as I used to be. Minimum one Estonian-style, one Faroese, and one Icelandic-style. A hap shawl would be nice too. I want to knit at least one from my own handspun, and one that's my own design. Oh, and one in hemp or linen.

Then it occurred to me to count up how many projects I actually knitted in 2009. Let's see: 2.9 shawls; 1 sweater; 1 mini-shawl; 1.9 pairs of socks; 1 cowl. Hmmm. Time to revise expectations - the ten shawls are more like a five-year plan.

Oh well, here's my preliminary pattern list anyway. Because lists are fun - imagiknitting galore! (Most of these links take you to Ravelry.) Click away!

Colorful shawls
Stephen West's Daybreak. Stripes, and a great semi-circular shape.


A stranded colorwork shawl like Pinnneguri's steeked Thistle, but with a different chart. Something like Christel Seyfarth's Bird shawl, or Kaffe Fassett poppies? In Shetland wool.

Ulmus from Through the Loops. Slip-stitch stripes plus a lacy border - color, texture, and lace all in one shawl.



Lacy shawls
Two by Ann Hanson: Artichaut from Twist Collective (this would be beautiful in the white hemp I have in stash) and Trevi
  

Miralda's Triangular shawl from Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia.


Cobweb stole by Michele Rose Orne. Really like the unusual lace patterning in this one.


Myrtle leaf stole and Handsome Triangle from Victorian Lace Today. Myrtle leaf would be nice in hemp or linen; Handsome Triangle in silk.
  

Clothilde, by Kristen Hanley Cardozo


Echo Flower by Jenny Johnson Johnen, in pretty Estonian motifs


Litla Hyrna Huldu Simple Icelandic shawl with a pretty border. I've got a lot of unspun Icelandic in stash.


That's a lot of laciness after all.

Simple shawls
Ysolda Teague's Damson


Mara and Hannah Breetz's Storm Cloud Shawlette would both be great for my inexpert handspun.
  

Like hundreds of other knitters, I love Citron from Knitty, by Hilary Smith Callis.


Theory shawlette by Jennifer Lang - nice pattern for DK-weight yarn.



Shawls with texture
Gossamer Square from Elise Duvekot's Knit One Below. Unusual technique, two colors of Kidsilk Haze - interesting texture plus subtle colorplay.


Lily Chin's Reversible cabled rib shawl



That's eighteen right there, and there isn't a hap shawl, a Faroese, or one of my own design on the list. And I can't even cast on for  number one yet - first I have to knit an overdue Ice Queen, and I really should finish my Girasole. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.