Sunday, August 26, 2018

Traigh - a knitting post

when I was in Shetland this summer I made sure to buy enough yarn in a single shade to knit a jumper. I don't think I'm going to knit a jumper anytime soon, but the intention is there. I'm a slow knitter, and I like to see obvious progress to keep me motivated - I'm just not sure I have the patience.

Meanwhile just as the weathers turned cold I've finished Traigh, a Kate Davies design that's somewhere between a scarf and a shawl. I'm so pleased with it that I've already started another one which will be blue (after I got my father to bring emergency yarn supplies south with him) and hopefully free of the mistakes that I made in the first one.

Turns out it's fatal to watch antiques roadshow whilst knitting even the most basic lace pattern - a moments distraction is all it takes and I've lost count of where I am.

I particularly like the construction of this - you knit the lace border first in one long strip, and then pick up stitches from the middle of it to create the shallow curve of the shawl body. Easy enough even for my limited knitting skills, and very adaptable.

Before dressing 

And after.


6 comments:

  1. That looks so good, well done. I find shawls seem to take longer than sweaters for me; perhaps it is because one completes each component of a garment?

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    1. It might be that there's quite a lot of me for a jumper to cover, and I prefer them long too. It seems like a big commitment, rather than something I could do in a few weeks. This is quite a shallow shawl, so didn't take too long at all.

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  2. This is so pretty! Well done! I cannot accept that your knitting skills are 'limited', I think you're very clever.

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    1. If you could have seen me try and work out a long tail cast on you'd know just how limited my skills are. I'm looking for something simple involving short rows next, which I don't currently understand at all. None of it comes particularly naturally to me, but the whole process of making is so satisfying that it doesn't much matter. It's a really lovely hap though, and I'm so pleased with it.

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  3. If I have a very long cast on, I avoid long tail because I'm terrible at estimating how much yarn will be needed. What yarn did you use for your Traigh?

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    1. Jamieson's spindrift, the colour is Rosewood which is a sort of blue brown mix, and I used 6 25g balls. I really love the Shetland yarns so tend to buy a small mountain of it when I'm up there to play with when I get home. Inevitably I never have quite enough of whatever colour I want!

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