I am a woman who wears scarves (and shawls)

It is time to get rid of some clothes. Again. I’ve been taking bags of perfectly good working clothes to our women’s shelter for four years now, since taking early retirement and leaving the office. I hoped my old clothes would help another woman start a new life. I was starting a new life too, and I would not need the suits and silk blouses that were in those bags.

Our clothes express both how we see ourselves, and how we want others to see us. When I began my professional career in the late 1970s, a slightly built, young woman in a man’s profession, my clothes announced that I was serious and competent. Tailored navy blue suit. Neat silk shirts and blouses. Heeled pumps. Leather briefcase.

I had the look down but I was never entirely comfortable with that conformity. I wanted something that announced I was unique. I wanted to stand out, just a bit, not too much. I learned to wear scarves. Good quality silk or wool scarves casually tossed over my shoulders or loosely tied. I wore them almost every day.

As the years passed, my confidence grew and I learned I didn’t have to force myself into the male mold. There is a place for the feminine in the office. The lines of my suits softened. My skirts flared. I continued to wear scarves.

When I retired my life and my dress were blank canvasses. I had long empty hours not sure what to do. I gave away my work clothes but my Saturday clothes weren’t right either. My jewelry stayed in the box, my scarves in the closet.

My life filled again, caring for aging parents and new grandchildren, volunteering at work that feels important to me, knitting, sewing and growing my own vegetables. I am learning to be creative, learning to be free to fail, learning I am not dependent on success. Blue jeans replaced the navy suit, tee shirts replaced the silk blouses. Instead of neat button earrings, now my earrings dangle.

I am wearing scarves again. But it is time for the old scarves to go. Today I wear those I knit myself.

Of Nupps and Bobbles

Until you get the hang of them, nupps are difficult. That’s the bottom line. There are a lot of nupps in the Swallowtail and a lot of discussion among Swallowtail knitters about easier ways to make them. But I struggled through them, doing them exactly as Evelyn Clark wrote them and it wasn’t long before they were slipping easily off my needle and most of them turned out pretty well.

If you stick with Evelyn Clark’s method, here’s some advice:

· Give yourself some extra yarn for the purl 5 together. Don’t be afraid to stretch out the stitches in the k1 yo k1 yo k1 stitch. This allows you to get the right needle under all 5 strands and pull them off easily without losing one.

· When you insert the right needle under the 5 strands for your purl, pull the needle out just a bit to put a little tension on the 5 strands and smooth them out. Getting them all neat and orderly at this point will give you a nice neat, orderly nub. At this point you can also clearly see whether or not you have 5 strands on the needle and when they are all lying neatly together you are not as likely to lose one.

But now that I know I can do them Evelyn’s way, I wanted to know if there is an easier method that looks just as nice. And I wanted to know if the bobble used in the Lily of the Valley pattern in the Stitch Dictionary in Vogue Knitting would work just as well. It is done all at one time on the right side of the fabric. If I didn’t like how it turned out, I’d know right away and could redo it without having to unknit a row or more to fix it.

I made a swatch with three ways of making nupps. Reading from right to left, the first column are the nupps as written in Evelyn Clark’s pattern, that is purl 5 together; the second column are made by Slip 2, K3 tog, pass slipped 2 over; the 3rd column are Slip 3, K2 tog, pass slipped 3 over. The left most column is Vogue’s bobble, K1P1K1P1K1 in same stitch, then pass the 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st stitches over the last stitch made.

There isn’t a lot of difference in the first three columns. I do think the purl 5 together, when done well, is the most attractive. However, the other two are significantly easier and for me that means more likely to be done well. My overall best results were from Slip 3, K2 tog, pass slipped 3 over. The parallel threads lie neatly over the top of the nupp and are supported by a nice fullness underneath. This will be my method of choice for next time.

I rejected the Vogue bobble although it was easiest of all. It opens up in the middle, giving the button a quite different look.

Swallowtail Shawl: Blocked and Beautiful

It’s done! Although I’ve done lace before, I’d done nothing more difficult than neatly aligned yarn overs and knit 2 togethers. The Swallowtail was a challenge. I devoted many hours to knitting and unknitting.

I struggled through the three patterns, the budding lace, the nuppy lily of the valley border and the relatively easy peaked edging. After the bind off I looked at the heap of knitted yarn that was the shawl with mixed relief and dismay. This wavy, unruly thing did not look at all like the shawl I wanted to make. Had all been in vain after all? What made me think I could do this?

I knew every fiber of the yarn needed to be fully saturated if blocking were going to tame this mess. I put the unblocked shawl to soak with a little shampoo and left it in the sink and left for the hairdresser. A haircut could only help. After dinner I was ready. I squeezed out the water, stretched the damp shawl on a large towel, pinned carefully and the pattern began to pop. Success!

I should sit back, relax and enjoy the satisfaction of a challenge met. Take a walk, clean the house, read a book maybe. But there is never a time I want to knit more than I do right after one project is done. A second Swallowtail is already taking shape on my needles.

Swallowtail Shawl: Humility

I have a tendency to take on too much. And so it was with the Swallowtail Shawl. I needed a project to take on vacation, something I could easily finish during a two week road trip. Knitters on Ravelry reported the Swallowtail Shawl was an easy, quick knit. One knitter said she finished it in eight hours. Not me. The vacation is over. The shawl is not finished and I’ve done more unknitting on this than on anything else I’ve ever knit.

I’d like to think I’ve been knitting for 50 years. After all, my aunt taught me when I was 9 or 10. But I don’t remember knitting more than a few inches then. I knit a few scarves in college, a blanket for my first born, two ponchos in the late ‘70s. I gave away my needles and yarn in the ‘90s and started all over again 4 years ago when I retired. I’ve knit a little lace but this was my first time to knit from a chart.

The pattern begins with a crocheted chain of waste yarn. Two stitches are picked up and knit for 6 rows, then the garter ridges are picked up, the chain is unzipped and the exposed stitches picked up. Simple enough. It took me 3 tries!

Clark’s Budding Lace, a simple 6 stitch, 6 row pattern, makes up the body of the shawl. The owner of my LYS suggested I knit a swatch of the pattern so I could see how it works. I didn’t. Instead, I knit at least 10 pattern repeats before I understood it well enough to identify a mistake in time to fix it. Once I finally got it, it was indeed simple, easy to see and follow. I did an extra five pattern repeats as suggested by Littleberry here so I could enjoy knitting once I finally understood what I was doing.

Onward to the Lily of the Valley border. I knew from posters on Ravelry that the nupps could be a challenge. A nupp is created by K1, yo, K1, yo, K1 in the same stitch on the right side and then purling all 5 together on the wrong side. Done correctly the five strands lay parallel to each other in a neat little button. I’d read all kinds of suggestions of how to do them, work on the cable of the needle, use a crochet hook, slip 2, knit 3 together, pass slipped 2 over or slip 3, knit 2 together, pass slipped 2 over. The bottom line is that they are just plain difficult. It is hard to grab all 5 stitches, hard to grab all 5 without picking up the yarn over that follows and there is no way I could figure out to fix an error from the next row and keep the button looking neat. If I found a mistake, and I found many, I had to unknit all the way back to the right side of the nupp and do it and everything after all over again.

I think I finally have the hang of the nupps. I’m working them just as written, stretching out the yarn in each of the K1s to give me lots of room to insert my needle when I purl 5 together. And so now I’m going to frog back to the Budding Lace and do them all over again.

Hopefully my next post will include a picture of a finished, Swallowtail Shawl.