Now I'm Cooking with Gas

It's really hard to see. I've taken several, several pictures and it just isn't coming through, but for what it's worth here it is. This is the swallowtail shawl from the Fall Interweave Knits. I spent a couple of weeks messing with the nupps. I hate the nupps. I was not enjoying knitting the shawl so it sat a lot. Finally I decided I had to frog back to the beginning of the nupp section and start over. Thank goodness for lifelines. There are five in the picture above, overkill to some, but I knit lace with no trepidation.

I really wasn't looking forward to frogging because it had taken me so long to get to the point where I was. Little did I know it was the nupps. When I frogged, I was on row 9 of lily of the valley chart one. That was Saturday evening, as of last night (Wednesday) I was on row eleven of chart two lily of the valley and not looking back. I'm cooking with gas baby.

I'm using clear beads for the nupps and I like it just fine. I kind of wish the beads were matte rather than shiny, but I'm knitting from stash so it's OK.

As some of my knit group members were finishing their first swallowtail they were talking about knitting another, and I've read of several people online wanting to do a second. When I was working on the nupps I couldn't image wanting to do another, but now I have to agree. The shawl really goes pretty fast and I would consider another. I think it would make a great gift.

Several people in my knitting group have done the swallowtail using a heavier yarn. For example Jeri used Knitpicks Gloss which is 70% merino and 30% silk. Their website lists it as a fingering weight. More details of how much yarn she used and how she adjusted the pattern are available on her blog. See Sept. 30th for yarn details and October 5th for a picture of the beautiful, blocked shawl. She wears it to knit night and it looks fabulous. If I do another, I would consider using this yarn as well.

http://soapquiltknit.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_soapquiltknit_archive.html

Angela knit hers using 3 skeins of silky wool. She also added extra repeats to the pattern. She doesn't have a blog so there are no pictures. But it is beautiful.

That's all for now. Let lacevember begin.