FO: Olympic Rose of England Tea Shawl

As you may have guessed, the radio silence has meant that I totally failed to complete my Rose of England by the end of the Olympics. I was going crazy knitting Thursday and Friday before the Olympics ended and realized that I wasn't having any fun. So I eased up, and just enjoyed the ride. It's taken me until today to finish the last dozen or so rows and the crocheted bind off.

Pattern: Rose of England (tea cloth) from Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting
Yarn: Baruffa Cashwool, most of one hank (~1400 yards)
Needles: Size 6 Knitpicks options, Size B crochet hook for the edging.
Size: Blocked to 58" across, pulled back some once off the pins

Kinzel's pattern is clear and well written, but that didn't stop me from having trouble wrapping my head around it. The charts have a slightly different style from most modern lace charts, which threw me for a bit of a loop. Then there's the matter of casting on for such a small diameter, which is always a bit tricky.

After the first day of knitting, I found that I had completely missed... something. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but I had to rip out completely and start over. So I lost some time there. It was all pretty much smooth sailing after that. Except for the problem of the Extremely Long Rows toward the end. And that was just a problem of inertia. I did get hung up a bit at the crocheted edging, but after reviewing multiple instructions on how to do a double crochet, I found About.com's the most useful, and off I went.

The yarn was lovely. It's been in my stash for years, and I was glad to use the Olympics as a chance to use it up. I didn't run into any knots or slubs, which is very nice over that length of yarn.

Preblocking, the usual crumpled mess:


Blocking. It took all my T-pins, and most of the safety pins I could dig up to pin out the crocheted loop edging.


Draped over a chair:


Hanging off the side of the fridge:


Edging details:



Center details:



And now onto the next!

Knitting Olympics update 2

I'm at row 96 out of 152 (including the bind off row). I have 56 rows left. I'm aiming to complete a little over 9 rows per day. That way, all I have left to do on Sunday is block it. Now, this goal may be a little far fetched considering the length of the rows I have now... and that they're only going to get longer.

Luckily, this evening, I'm aiming to complete about 14 rows. I'm just at the point where I have 6 rows plain knitting, followed by two pattern rows, followed by 6 more rows plain knitting. Hopefully I can power through it.



It seems that this house gets almost no natural light. However, there's a window right next to the refrigerator. White background + natural light = halfway decent pictures. It works nicely for lace, in any case.

Knitting Olympics update

I had a false start on my Knitting Olympics project. There are seven charts and, as I began the second one, I discovered that I had borked... something. I was short a double yarn over somewhere back, 7 stitches short at the end of the row. And I couldn't fix it.

I spent some time being angry at my knitting and then I started over. And did more counting. I'm now on the fourth chart, row 56 of 152 rows (and bind off) with no major errors. What was really annoying was that I had to cast on twice. Casting on 10 stitches on size 6 needles is a pain! But I did it! Twice. grr.



Am I on track to finish by the closing ceremonies? I have no idea. I have a very busy week at work, so I'm maybe not getting in as much knitting time as I could. And then I'm teaching a knitting class on Saturday, for which I need to prepare materials.

Oh, didn't I mention? I'm now teaching knitting classes at the Dancing Ewe. I had my first class ever last week and it was great. This week's class: a basic hat. I'm really looking forward to it!

I'm ready!

Ready for the Olympics to start, so I can cast on for the Knitting Olympics.

I've got all my supplies ready and waiting.


I've got the pattern. Rose of England from the Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting, as seen here knit by Cookie A.


I've got the yarn. Baruffa Cashwool purchased years ago at Acorn Street in Seattle.


I've got the needles, two sets! Ancient dpns, and my addi lace needles, size 6.


Let's go!