I'm BAAAAAAACK... with the end-of-summer wrap-up!!

*TWO* MONTHS??! Wow. I knew it had been quite a while since my last blog post, and that in the interim I had completed my tenure dossier, a new school year had started, and a whole lot of other momentous things had happened around our household, including a flea tsunami that engulfed our 100% indoor cat and rabbit population (go figure...), and the arrival of two little rescue kittens (4-5 weeks old), who turned out to have ringworm, a fungal infection that is terribly contagious to cats and rabbits, and to humans as well. So in the last two weeks, just as the flea situation was finally getting under control, we have had to implement a vigorous new regimen of quarantine procedures to protect ourselves and our other pets while the ringworm decontamination runs its course. There are now "plague kittens" by the names of Ghost and Goblin holed up in what used to be my bathroom.

In other words, I have had a lot on my mind lately. Along the way I have been knitting a fair bit, although not as continually as I did in June and July. I have also been keeping track of my progress on Ravelry, and even posting the occasional picture on my project pages. I received a generous birthday check from my mother in early August, which led to the purchase of many yummy and long-coveted things, including yarn and pattern books and even a woolly board, about which there will be more to say eventually. But in all honesty I did not realize how long I had managed to let the blog lie fallow while all of this was happening. It nagged at me, though. I kept telling myself to do something about it and not quite getting around to it, and time just kept going by...

Apropos of which, I learned something interesting a day or two ago. Apparently Mark Twain did not say, "The rumors of my demise have been exceedingly exaggerated," as I have so often heard it quoted in various contexts. What he really wrote (and you can click here for an image of the actual handwritten page) was this: "James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness. The report of my death was an exaggeration."

Fascinating tidbit, yes? And having set the record straight, let's see what we can do to breathe some life into this blog of mine. Ever since the completion of the wedding gift in late July, my energies have been concentrated on continuing to wrap up as many WIP's as possible, and delightfully, we can now check three more items off my long list of unfinished projects.

I. The "Other" Niebling

The first thing that I did, knitting-wise, when we got home from the wedding at the end of July was to go back and finish up the other Niebling square. This was originally meant as practice for the wedding gift, in white no. 10 crochet cotton as opposed to the silvery gossamer silk, but I had to abandon it partway through, because there were only 3 weeks left until the wedding day and I needed all of that time to finish the "echt object" in good order. I had gotten through the first chart (rows 1-90), though, so all the cotton square needed was the 42 edging rows, which took only a few days. I had known all along that it was going to be a substantial piece, just from the heft of it on the needles and the fact that it used up two full balls (= 800 yards!!) of the thread. But nonetheless I was amazed to see it block out to a full 36" square. Here are some photos of the finished object, which brought my total # of WIP's on Ravelry down to *10* once more, where it had been before the onset of the two Niebling projects. As always, click on any of these images to take a closer look.

I would like to display this piece of lace in my home someday, if I can just find a way to put it under glass and away from those mischievous kitty claws!! ;-)

II. Candlelight Kimono

At one point I had been hoping to wear my scaled-down rendition of this sweater to some part of the wedding festivities, in order to show off my handiwork that was nearly two decades in the making, but the intricacies of the Niebling project — which clearly took priority — soon put paid to that idea. On our return home, I had the back all done and the lace section of the two fronts as well, which meant that I still had to finish the fronts and knit the sleeves (including Japanese short-rows, which were a new technique for me), then block all the pieces stretched out flat, and carefully sew the whole thing together. The pattern called for the back neckband to be knitted as a strip and sewn in place, but instead I used a technique similar to the one by which a perpendicular edging is grafted onto the live stitches of a lace shawl.

It took several weeks and some painstaking work to complete the project, but I was absolutely THRILLED with the end results. I felt especially proud of the sewing job that I did, because the seams turned out nearly perfectly, giving the sweater just enough structure to show off the magnificent drape of the silk fabric. All the loose ends also had to be invisibly tacked down by hand on the wrong side of the fabric. The photo gallery includes a picture of the sweater when worn, which was shot from below (because I stood up while my husband with the camera was sitting down) and thus emphasizes my natural curves to an unusual degree. But I think the glowing smile on my face pretty much says it all. For of course I now had only *9* WIP's left on Ravelry. Getting that vital number into the single digits felt really, really good. As always, click on any of these images for a closer view.

III. Fiddlehead Mittens

Adrian Bizilia's Fiddlehead Mittens are ENORMOUSLY popular, with 1068 projects currently listed on Ravelry. It's not hard to understand why either, because they make for a relatively quick and easy knit. The clever stranded design incorporates traditional elements and yet has a snazzy contemporary feel, and the pattern leaves lots of room for creativity in the selection and arrangement of colors. The luxurious lining is just icing on the cake (or perhaps more aptly filling in the jellyroll, given its position on the inside rather than the outside), adding a sybaritic extra layer to the stranded fabric that is already pretty cushy by itself.

I made the outside of my first mitten way back in March, but then it got too hot to think about snuggly warm things anymore, or so I told myself. I certainly would not have any use for them until the depths of winter anyway, so I waited until the mood was right to finish the job. Oddly enough, despite the heat, the moment arrived in late August, right before school started, when I had a brief window of opportunity to blitz through the remaining steps in quick succession — 2nd mitten body, 2nd thumb, 1st lining, 2nd lining — and check off another completed project from my list, bringing the total # of WIP's on Ravelry down to an eminently manageable *8* (where the tally stands to this day). The mittens fit me perfectly, cozy and comfy on my small hands and not too much like giant oven mitts, since I went down a needle-size from the pattern specs to make sure that the gauge would be just right. The jewel-toned yarn on the outside is Swedish wool from my stash, purchased long ago (Borgs Vävgarner S.N.2 garn), and the lining is buttery soft alpaca from KnitPicks (Andean Treasure).

Here is the third and final photo gallery for this post, showing my Fiddleheads in all their matching glory. As always, click on any of these images to take a closer look.

As this last photo shows, if you look closely, each mitten laid flat is nearly an inch thick!! I am SERIOUSLY looking forward to the sovereign protection that these mittens will provide for my hands on those frozen winter walks to and from campus. Bring it on, Boreas...

My Niebling Adventure Begins

Herbert Niebling (1905-1966) was a master of German Kunststriken or "Art Knitting," who brought us the famous Lyra pattern and many other fancy doilies and tablecloths. Many of his designs feature elaborate flowers and/or foliage in fascinating geometric arrangements, and he is said to have had the unusual gift of being able to look at something (e.g. a vase of flowers) and translate what he saw directly into lace knitting. Read more about Niebling here.

The patterns were originally published in European magazines, which made them extremely hard to come by in the US market for a long time, until the spate of recent republications instigated by and/or available from Lacis in Berkeley, CA. Rare copies of the original Lyra once sold on ebay for $100's, but now the Lacis reprint is available for a mere $7. There is also the book called Knitted Lace Designs of Herbert Niebling, an English translation of Eva Maria Leszner's 1986 Gestrickte Spitzendecken. I have learned that the English title is a misnomer, in that many of the patterns are in fact *not* actual Nieblings. But positively verifying such attributions can be an impossible task, partly because the original published patterns often do not include the name of the designer for each piece, but also because there was in fact a Niebling "school" or design team that worked under his name and stylistic influence, like the ateliers of the Renaissance.

So there has been an explosion of Niebling work in the English-speaking world in recent years, with the formation of at least one Yahoo group and much activity on Ravelry, etc. It has become quite popular to knit doily patterns at a larger gauge so that they can be worn as shawls: Lacefreak's purple Lyra is a lovely example, marked as a Ravelry "favorite" by nearly 800 people to-date. I bought the Lyra pattern and the Leszner book last year, along with a cone of Gossamer Silk from Heirloom Knitting in stunning silver (see left), in hopes of starting a Niebling adventure of my own. And with a family wedding coming up in mid-July to serve as the excuse, I decided that the time had come to make it happen.

For the wedding gift I chose a rectangular design (shown on p. 87 of the Leszner book), consisting of two identical squares that are grafted together down one side before an elaborate border/edging is worked all the way around the outside. It may or may not be an authentic Niebling design, but it has enough complex elements to it so as not to be a dull knit, and I can interpret a fair bit of wedding imagery out of it as well. I decided to do a single practice square first, with no. 10 crochet cotton and 2.75 mm (US size 2) needles, to be sure that I understood the chart. I used up an entire ball (400 yards) of the crochet cotton just on the main chart!!

The original plan was to finish the cotton piece before even touching the silk, but then part way along I suddenly realized that the wedding was only 3 weeks away (yikes!!), and so I reluctantly laid the practice piece aside with its edging incomplete. And then there were (*sigh*) thirteen... Then again, a case could be made to consider the cotton and the silk together as a single project rather than two separate ones. And both are short-term investments rather that will not become permanent fixtures on the WIP list. I fully intend to finish the cotton one ASAP, both as a matter of principle but also because it will give me something to keep, since I am giving the silk version away. Here are a few pictures of the crochet cotton at different stages, starting with dpn's and moving to a circular needle.

Notice the little brown pelican stitch marker in that last picture? I originally commissioned four pelicans, two white and two brown, from Jillian at Wee Ones, as a tribute to my maiden name (Pelikan), but working on this piece and thinking about recent headlines I discovered that the emblem could also serve as a meditation focus or prayer bead for the Gulf Coast oil spill, which made the knitting that much more meaningful.

The silk version has taken up the preponderance of my knitting time this whole past week. In fact, I have done very little else, because I am eager to finish it in plenty of time without any last-minute panic or midnight marathons. Just last night I finished the first of the two squares, which means that I am right on schedule and ~30% done with the piece as a whole. I am working with 1.75 mm (US size 00) needles, which is a step up from the 1.5 mm (US size 000) that I used for the Princess Shawl and other CashSilk projects. I could have chosen the smaller size for this project too, but I wanted to ensure that the lace would really open up. The fabric will require some serious blocking, of course, but I think it is going to shape up nicely and will make a big impression as a wedding gift. Fingers crossed...

Here are some pictures of the silk square as a work-in-progress, with knitting notes below. I have been photographing it against both pale and dark backgrounds, because the varying contrasts show off the lace in different ways (color vs. pattern). As always, click on any of the images to take a closer look.

Casting on in a circle with the tiny, slippery silk thread was a veritable nightmare at first. But after trying several “clever” new methods of circular-cast-on with the gossamer yarn to no good effect, I finally adopted an old-school approach, especially because the silk was likely to break when attempting to adjust a slip-ring at the center. So I got out my 1.0 mm crochet hook, made a fixed ring of 6 tiny chain stitches, placed the live loop onto a dpn, pulled a new stitch through the chain loop with the crochet hook and transferred it to the dpn (= 2 stitches), wrapped the yarn around the dpn once (= 3 stitches), then created another stitch with the crochet hook through the chain loop (= 4 stitches), and so on, until I had 16 stitches, which was 1/2 the desired amount. I then knit one row plain (figuring that the gossamer yarn could handle an extra mm or two near the center), then a row of knitting into the front and back of every stitch to double the count, then two rows plain as per the pattern, before starting the chart with row 3. Worked like a charm, and felt like a huge accomplishment.

In rows 3-15 the pattern calls for a number of crossed stitches (really mini-cables) in adjacent pairs, and the one modification that I made to the chart as written was to angle these away from each other for symmetry, rather than crossing them all in the same direction. It was a bit of a nuisance, but my friendly crochet hook proved its usefulness yet again, by serving as the world’s most convenient cable needle. One more floppy stick was the last thing I wanted in the midst of 5 dpn’s on that tiny scale!! Fortunately, though, I got through those early rows relatively fast.

My 1.75 mm dpn's are fully 8" long, and so I had originally acquired only 24" and 32" circular needles in that size, which meant that I was not able to take the first square off the dpn's until after 31 rows (when it would finally fit on the 24" circular). The slippery silk made some serious ladders at the junctions between needles. I don’t know if these will eventually block out or not, or maybe part way, but since they are evenly placed on all four sides of the square I keep telling myself that they will not detract from the finished product in any case, provided that both conjoined squares match. So even though I ordered both a 16" circular needle in the 1.75 mm size, and even a 12" one as well, I will probably use the dpn’s for the first 31 rows of the second square as well and save my new shorter-circumference circs for future projects, of which there are bound to be many. ;-)

When the first square was finished, I transferred it to a crochet cotton lifeline so that I could see what the pattern looked like (and get pictures) and to facilitate the grafting process as well. The latter should not pose an insurmountable difficulty, since it thankfully involves only single stitches alternating with yo loops. And once it is done, I will place the remaining live stitches from both squares onto the 32” circular needle for the edging. I deliberately postponed the last row of plain knitting from the main chart, so that the graft can take the place of it down the center seam, and so that I can use it to establish the unified path all the way around the outside of the rectangle prior to starting the edging chart.

One little footnote: the only other knitting that I have managed to squeeze in around all this Niebling lace is the Evenstar, where I am happy (and relieved) to report that I now have 30 out of 56 edging points complete. It felt really good to pass the halfway point at last, and to empty the first container of beads as well. Progress... My goal is to wear the shawl to the same wedding where the Niebling will be a gift. So far, so good.