Comfort knitting

Well, I worked very hard on my conference paper last week, and got it done (with pie charts!), and ... and nothing. By Friday I was sick with a sore throat and was losing my voice, and on Saturday morning -- when I was supposed to present my paper -- I felt worse. So no conference, no paper. I was disappointed, plus I had this pesky stabbing pain in my throat, and if that wasn't enough, Saturday afternoon came with period cramps. So it was a rotten day. So I started knitting.

As I mentioned in my last post, I already had my eye on the Prairie Rose Shawl from A Knitter's Book of Wool, and I had the perfect yarn for it. On our holiday to the east coast last fall, I'd bought a 400-yard skein of Shetland laceweight that was from the Last Resort Farm in Malagash, NS. It's very woolly -- a little bit thick and thin, spun tight in some parts, fluffy in others. Since KBoW is a celebration of wool -- real, woolly wool -- and since Prairie Rose called for less than 400 yards, it was a perfect match.


So I knit, and I knit, and I knit. I watched TV (Kramer vs. Kramer was on, and then loads of reality shows). I cuddled with Mooky. And I knit. And then I knit on Sunday, too, between cups of tea and hankies full of ... well, I was sick. But I knit and knit, and by Monday evening, I was blocking my Prairie Rose Shawl. And I was feeling better.


Now, the pattern calls for 370 yards of "fingering" (though the shawls shown are knit in laceweight), so I thought I was safe with my 400 yards of heavy lace, but I ran out. I had to knit the final row and do the bind-off in another yarn; fortunately, I had a ball of Plymouth Baby Alpaca laceweight in the same shade of grey. And it actually worked out well. I think the Last Resort wool would have made a bit of a thick edge, while the baby alpaca is finer and made for a more delicate edge. So all’s well that ends well. (Still, be warned!) Maybe I ran out because I went up a needle size (pattern calls for 3.5 mm; I used 3.75 mm) to get a slightly larger shawl. I was cutting it pretty close.

As with all Evelyn Clark shawls, the construction is simple and logical, and the finished product is lovely. Plus, my cold is pretty much gone. Plus, I can recycle that conference paper. My pie charts will live again!