Beginnings and endings

Beginnings of a shawl using the 'Matisse' yarn spun from the last of the spring/summer Roving Art club. I thought quite a bit about what I wanted to do with this yarn and I kept going back to the Old Shale Lace Shawl from the summer 2008 issue of Spin Off magazine, another Evelyn Clark design. I like the simplicity of the pattern, especially since there are such long repeats of color. I had a momentary issue with it as it was July when I began musing on what to do, and I was thinking of Paris and July and that led to Bastille Day and my mind jumped to Madame Lafarge and her knitting aristocrat names and crimes into her work, and all the eyelets made me think of rolling heads, quel horreur! I started to reject the idea but I kept going back to the pattern and this time my thoughts turned to more pleasing venues such as this shawl could be something Peter Mayle picked up for his wife in Paris and she would toss around her shoulders when the evenings turned cool sitting around their enormous outdoor table in Provence. Or perhaps something Leslie Duncan would have left over her chair when called to do another scene. Feeling much more comfortable with it I began. But not until I finished the Whisper shawl.

I am astonished with how beautifully lightweight this shawl is and how pleasing it is to wear. It was a lot of work, and I do admit that I would set it aside to do some spinning or other knitting, but I am so glad that I picked it up again determined to finish. The challenge here was whether or not I would have enough yarn to finish the entire shawl, as I only had the one skein, and I am happy to say that I did. I thought perhaps I might have to leave off the final edging across the top, but I had enough yarn to finish that as well.

Another temporary ending with the prospect of a new beginning is the skein of Free Fall #128, also from Taos Sunflower Too. I was able to get 678 yards from 3.8 oz., so I am very happy with it. As I was plying it my mind kept seeing autumn leaves so perhaps I can come up with a pattern that would show this off in a lovely leaf pattern.
I still have two more 'skeins' of roving to spin and lots of projects to finish and even some baby knitting to do for new arrivals. I will let you know what I come up with.

Ciao, ate lago, au revoir.