Finished Orenburg Shawl

And finally the finished shawl. I like it sort of. I changed how I did the final row of edging because I thought it was necessary to do that, and as a result, it doesn't block like it should. But I can't bear to rip out that long row of edging.

This Orenburg shawl was set aside for such a long time,but the Knitting Olympics also stirred me to finish up some languishing projects. And a long car trip to and from Arizona gave me a lot of prime knitting time. Above are photos of what I finished on the road. The left picture shows that I've almost completed the third triangle point and am almost ready for the edging. The ball of "yarn" is wonderfully tiny!

August progress

August progress

As you see in the close-up, I have little thread markers for every pattern repeat. At first I tried regular markers, then yarn markers, but all were too big, so I went for thread, which was little-bitty to handle, but it works nicely.

The pattern is not that hard. My biggest trouble is getting the somewhat blunt Addi tips into the stitches without splitting them, or picking up in the purl bar below. That slows me down a little. And since I don't like to stop midway through a row, I don't pick it up unless I know I have time to spend.

But I LOVE how it feels, very soft and drapey. When I commented in my knitting group that I might get it finished by the time I was 90, someone commented that it would suit me at that age, implying that it was old-lady looking. Kinda hurt my feelings. I didn't think knitters thought in those stereotypes. O well. I love it, and it's a challenge to me!

First border plus a few more rows

Orenburg start, close up

August and September Progress

I started the border edging, did one and a half pattern repeats (16 rows each) and then ripped it out because I had started the repeat at the wrong place on the chart. Things are cruising along quite well now. If the shawl never materializes, I will at least have some lovely lace edging!

13 August 2004Remembering EZ's comment that one could SURELY use lace-knitting as a take-along project while traveling, I brought my lace edging on the plane with me on my trip to Minnesota. Since I knew the pattern so well by that point, it was really no problem to work on it. And I had purchased a size 1 bamboo needle ..love it, much sharper points. My airplane time plus one afternoon alone and I had the edging finished. I SHOULD have taken a picture of it at that point, but I was so excited, that I just had to continue along and pick up the 200+ stitches along the edging for the start of the shawl itself. Oops....I should have purchased that bamboo needle in a longer size. Drat! Now I'm back to the slippery, blunter-tipped Addi Turbo, but the join is so much smoother when dragging 200 some stitches along it! Hmm...wonder if I should try sanding the points a little to get a sharper tip? Well, here are two pictures of my present progress:

Cashmere Silk Yarn for Orenburg

Let Me Finish This Row

30 July 2004
Completing a few lace projects must have gone to my head, because I convinced myself to purchase a pattern for an Orenburg Shawl that I saw in the display hall at the Estes Park Wool Festival. Well, I wanted to buy just the pattern and spin the yarn for it myself from some heavenly cashmere/silk roving that I purchased shortly before. But then I learned that you don't get the pattern without buying the yarn to go with it. There was some lovely cobweb lace wool which was very tempting, but I ended up buying one (one!!) skein of a cashmere/silk plied yarn. Yarn? It looks more like sewing thread. It looks like string that would be too feeble to tie anything together. And just about as stretchy.

Using my ball winder, I rewound the skein into two balls. I couldn't find any TP cardboard centers to use as the core, so I just cut some cardboard from the side of a Pepsi carton...put it around the ballwinder and wound the thread on top of that...just to help keep that tiny thread from tangling as it gets pulled up for knitting.