October | 2024 | Knitigating Circumstances

For the past 18 months or so, one shawl has been at the top of my wear pile; the one I nearly always grab to keep myself warm and colourful. This is the simple striped shawl I knitted in seven shades of Garthenor Preseli (and blogged here). When Emma came home to visit last October, she was taken with it and asked me to knit one for her, using green shades rather than the red and orange tones I had used. We ordered a bunch of greens and mixed in a grey, a cream, and a yellow, and then sent each other many, many photos with different layouts of the possible combinations. In August, I realised that with Emma due to return home for another October visit, I had just enough time to knit it and send it home with her.

When I say ‘just enough time’ I mean it, and once again, I finished it literally in the nick of time. I cast off the last stitch just before midnight on Saturday night (week before last), and stayed up late to wash and block it. On Sunday evening, just as we were losing the last of the light, and as it was starting to rain (but of course!), I unpinned it so I could take a few photos. The next morning, she was wearing it as she left to fly back to Vancouver.

The shawl is knitted sideways. I cast on 386 stitches and, knitting a 3-stitch i-cord at each end, knit 10, purl 10 across. It is very simple, intuitive, mindless knitting. I knitted the first one when I was in the throes of post-covid brain fog, and if your brain is feeling tired, this is a good project to pick up.

I am totally enamoured of the Preseli wool; it is so cushiony and soft, and I find myself always squishing the shawl when I wear it. It is comforting. (Still wooly, however; it’s not a superwash merino). I’ve been wearing the heck out of mine and it hasn’t pilled. The colour sequence used is: Holly, Wild Olive, Slate, Kettle, Gorse, Marble, and Willow.

My notes from the first one say I used a US6/4mm needle. I did exactly the same with this one: same yarn, same number of stitches, same number of rows (26) of each colour. In a completely bizarre and inexplicable fashion, the green one came out wider but they both came out to the same length. Here you can see the green one as it is blocked and pinned out on the right, with the red one next to it for a size comparison.

The finished, blocked size is 19″x76″ for the red and 23″x76″ for the green. How can they be the same length but not the same width, given each stripe is 26 rows on the same size needle? It is a mystery for the ages.

I am so happy my family tolerates my need to take knitwear photos with good grace. Even when there are suitcases to pack. And it’s raining.

Diligent readers will have noticed that this means that Emma flew home with two shawls, since she also managed to finally finagle me into giving her my Soumak shawl (see my last post). I think I will need to cast on a shawl or two this winter to replenish my stock.

If you can vote in the US elections, please do so. Vote early (like I did this week)!

I will begin by saying that the knitting retreat was truly lovely. It was a smaller group than the previous two retreats I was on, with 12 of us altogether. Melmerby Hall continues to be a beautiful spot for a retreat, and it is still true that a randomly selected group of knitters who are previously unknown to each other can manage to bond over four days of knitting and talking, eating, drinking, and laughing together.

This time I went in September expecting warmer weather, and we got that in spades. The week was super sunny and very warm. We all ended up sitting in the sunshine every afternoon, enjoying the unexpected blessing of a blast of late summer, and knitting in tee-shirts while piles of knitwear stayed firmly in our suitcases. This resort is a completely unstructured one, in which Carmen and company ply us with good breakfasts, mid-morning treats, wonderful lunches, afternoon tea, late afternoon drinks and amazing charcuterie boards, dinner around a big dining table, and then late night drinks and knitting. Are you sensing a theme? Add lots of yarn, and you have a nice thing going on.

Every morning, I took a long walk through the countryside, accompanied by dogs and knitters (a natural class, it seems). Once again, all of my photos feature walls.

I also spent some time on this bench, reading:

I took three knitting projects with me. My Pressed Flowers cardigan, which I took mostly to show off, and true to form, I showed it off and then put it back in its bag where it stayed the whole trip. I also too the Hor # 19 linen tee-shirt, and I did knit some of that. Mostly, however, I was knitting a shawl for Emma, trying hard to get it finished in time to gift it to her on her visit (spoiler alert).

I also bought yarn. I purchased four skeins of Fluff, a really great new fluffy yarn from Walcot Yarn and Les Garçons. It is not mohair, and so is incredibly soft and not itchy. These are the colours I bought:

They are destined to be a Bella Blocking. I have joined a KAL, again with Carmen at A Yarn Story, to knit this. (Alas, we have had three weekly meeting so far, and I have yet to cast on.)

I could rattle on and on about the retreat, but I have other things to report of a knitterly nature. When I returned home, Emma was here! She and her partner, Justin, had planned to spend a few weeks here, but they ended up coming early (and staying longer) because of a pilot’s strike at Air Canada, so they arrived while I was away. The trip was lovely but, once again, a family get-together was marred by all of us getting sick (I am getting rather cross about this unfortunate and repeating occurrence).

Instead of going into details of many lost days spent coughing and wheezing, I will move on to the main topic (and thus title) of this post. It turns out that when you visit your mom who is a knitter, you don’t need to bother about bringing any knitwear with you. And when a knitter gets visited by her daughter, she should be prepared for a raid on her shawl chest.

Below is Emma having a beer at the Angel Pub in Henley-on-Thames with Doug, wearing my own design, Cool Boots – Neutral shawl (blogged here).

Here she is at Kew Gardens, wearing my Highland Rogue Cowl, designed by Kate Davies (and blogged here):

Here she is in London with me, wearing my Match & Move Shawl, designed by Martina Behm (and blogged here):

Here she is on the back garden wearing my Soumak Scarf Wrap, designed by Lisa Richardson (and blogged here).

Emma has been campaigning hard for me to gift her the Soumak ever since I finished knitting it in 2015. Dear readers, she has persevered. The Soumak went home with her!

In every photo I have of Emma this trip, she is wearing a hand-knitted shawl. Here is one with Justin:

Not only did Emma manage to thoroughly raid my shawl chest during her visit, but (as foreshadowed above) I have been labouring away to finish knitting a new shawl for her in time to send it back with her. I finished it just before midnight on Saturday night, and then washed and blocked it, and miraculously it was dry and around her neck when she left on Monday morning. I will tell you all about it and show you photos in the next post.

The only thing lovelier than having a chest full of hand-knitted knitwear, is having daughters come home and raid it!