The DaVinci Shawl

At the beginning of October Kalinumba (Anja of Germany, who also designed the last shawl I made) ran a KAL in which participants had to solve riddles to get into the files with the pattern parts for the shawl. It was a lot of fun but really hard (the riddles, not the pattern). I worked with people from all over the world for 2 days figuring out the clues. I finally just finished the shawl yesterday. It was supposed to be done in lace weight yarn but I had some beautiful fingering weight that I wanted made into a shawl or stole so that's what I used. The pattern was very versitile so I was able to not do all the rows and still hav e a pretty design within a reasonable size.
As we begin................





When all is knit and ready to block into shape, the livingroom sofa seems the best place.



To see the patterns I hung it from the drapes and pinned it at the top to the sheers. It doesn't really have those 2 pointy things on the top edge. The little things on the bow window sill are part of my bell collection with assorted dust bunnies.

The Rector Blocking Method

OK somebody else may have thought of this first but since I had never seen it, I'm claiming it as my own.

I just finished a test knit for a girl from Germany. I needed to block it last night and decided to try something on my own. I knew Yarn Harlot did straight edges with string on the top edge of a triangular scarf but still pinning it down to get the points. I had 4 straight edges and had another idea. Why not stretch it between heavy dining room chairs to dry? It could dry faster by not sitting on top of something wet but still dry out naturally . So I did it. Nothing to lose; if it didn't work I could just wet it and start again. But I love the way it turned out. The ends are stretched a little more than the center. I guess I could have avoided that by putting 2 more chairs in the center and pulling the strings to them; but I like it the way it is. More pictures to follow of the stole; a marvelous history of the pattern but I'll wait until she is published and you can buy the pattern yourselves. BTW the color is not right; it's really Spruce Heather, a dark green.
OK so here is one of the pictures that she used to advertise the pattern. And here's another of a friend wearing the shawl. Anja calls it the Historical Stole.

I'M PUBLISHED

For several months I've been doing test/sample knitting for designers and a couple of yarn companies. Here is my first published project for KnitPicks (they make great yarn, BTW). They are called Negative Space Mittens. I learned to do I-cord binding on these. No, I didn't design anything here....and my name will not appear anywhere; but, I DID get paid to knit up the sample.