I’m often asked how I come up with the new designs for various lace shawls. As I’m sure you can imagine, the process is a little bit different every time.
This particular shawl began with some yarn. 
Last year when I visited the Sanguine Gryphon at her fabulous dye camp, I dyed some Little Traveller yarn in shades of red and black. I was really pleased with how it turned out (and amazingly it’s a little bit similar to a couple of her official colourways – The Middle of Nowhere and Rojas). I’ve always meant to use this for a lace shawl, but I hadn’t quite figured out what the theme should be. So it’s been sitting in my stash since last May, just waiting for the right design.
In March, and then again in April the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted on Iceland. And on the news we saw spectacular pictures of the volcano, the lava, and (of course) the ash-clouds that are still disrupting air traffic occasionally. And whatever else the erupting volcano might be, some of those pictures were truly amazing, and my imagination started running wild with fires and streams of lava.
And then the Little Traveller yarn caught my eye again, and seemed to look just like the smouldering lava that had been forming in my imagination. Naturally this shawl had to be a circular shawl, so that the lava could start in the centre and work its way out.
As with all hand-dyed yarn, I had only a limited amount of yarn, with no possibility of getting more yarn to match, so it’s been important to me to use it as efficiently as possible. After finishing the first skein, I calculated how many more rounds I would get out of the second skein, and (with a small margin) designed the pattern to extend as far as possible.
The shawl should be ready in the next few days – I just have to work the edging and then of course block it. Blocking always works wonders on lace, and particularly on shawls knit in the round. During the actual knitting the shawl is so bunched up on the needles that it’s hard to see the pattern develop, and that makes the blocking transformation even more amazing.
I had a lovely visit to Turtlepurl‘s studio last week. As it turns out, she is located in the Ottawa area – just across the river, on the Quebec side. It’s a little less than one hour’s drive from my house, assuming you don’t go during rush hour.
Turtlepurl showed me around, and we had a wonderful time looking at all her amazing yarns and thinking up projects for them. My hands down favourite was the Satin Toes. It’s a fingering weight merino/tencel blend. The tencel makes it so shiny – similar to a silk blend – and also very strong. She has lots of different colours, and it was very hard to choose, but I ended up with two skeins of this silver gray colour. This yarn will be perfect for one of my upcoming lace shawls.
I also managed to get two skeins of Pillow Talk – a light fingering MCN in “Love Me” which I am planning to use for a sweater for my daughter. I think the colour will suit her perfectly. I actually have a great idea already for what to knit her, but with the heatwave we’ve been having recently (+30C and clear blue skies) I don’t think there’s any rush. She won’t be able to wear it until the fall anyway.
Last, but certainly not least, I got a set of stitch-markers. These stitch-markers are really cool. They are called thick-and-thin stitch-markers, and have a small loop on one side and a large loop on the other side. The small side fits up to 3.5 mm needles, and the large side up to 8 mm needles. The loops are also soft, which I really like. It makes them so much easier to manage on the needles. They have already been put to good use on my latest project.
Skuld is the first shawl in a series of three shawls on the theme of the three Norns (Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld) in Norse mythology. The determine the fate of all living creatures by spinning the threads of life. And they water Yggdrasil – the tree of life – so the branches do not dry out or rot.
Skuld is the Norn representing the future, and since the future is dark and unknown for us mortals, I choose to use Sappho II from the Sanguine Gryphon in “Sleep Comes Down”. The colours are dark blues and black.
The Norns are responsible for spinning the threads of life for all living things, and our lives are all intertwined. Skuld is a triangular shawl designed around the idea of the threads of life and our intertwined lives. The pattern will be available on June 15 as part of the Seasons of Lace series.
I’m still knitting away on the Wollmeise Lace-Garn Cardigan. The body is completed and I have started on the sleeves.
I ended up frogging back the body 3 times I think. Mainly because of small mistakes that I just didn’t find on time, and then couldn’t be fixed nicely. And I *hate* mistakes in my knitting, so once I’ve found them I just have to fix them. Oh well, it’s all good now.
This cardigan will be waist-length, with full length sleeves, and I’m sure that I will still have a fair amount of yarn left over. One skein of Lace-Garn is all of 300 g and a little over 1,700 yards, so there is a lot of margin.
I’ve also made some progress on the sleeve. Not much, but it’s coming along. I’ve knit this part twice as well, just because I changed my mind on where to start the round, and I think this will work a lot better for multiple sizes.
My plan is to block the body in the next day or two, and then block the sleeves (after I’ve knit them, of course – getting ahead of myself a little) separately, and attach them after the fact.
Aside from the cardigan, I’ve also been working on a whole slew of different designs. If everything pans out I will have a very busy summer ahead of me. 
But it’s better to be too busy than to not have anything to do, I think.
The stories of the Norns have always fascinated me.
The three sisters live in a remote area of Aasgard, under the first root of Yggdrasil. They live in a dark cave, and in front of the cave is a well. The root of Yggdrasil snakes around the well. Each day the sisters collect water from the well and mix it with the magic clay and the coarse sand surrounding the well. They create a paste with which they cover the root to prevent rot and to preserve the life force of the tree. Yggdrasil is the world tree – central to the nine worlds of Norse mythology.
Every morning after caring for the tree, the sisters start to spin. But the thread they spin is no ordinary thread; it is not only the thread of life for all human and divine life, but also the thread determining the fate of the universe. It is the norns that measure time and control the past, the present and the future.
Their names stem from their work. Urðr represents the past, Verðandi the present and Skuld that which will happen. Together they represent destiny.
The home of the Norns, at the well, in the shade of Yggdrasil’s root is a holy place. There are three reasons it is a holy place; this is where Yggdrasil is cared for so that no rot could spread in the universe. It’s where Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld spin the thread of life and death. And it’s where the Norse gods go every day to discuss and lay plans to postpone the destruction of the world – Ragnarrök.
What could be better than an entire season of lace?
Each month you will receive a brand new pattern for a lace shawl designed based on the current theme. The lace subscription can be ordered for the summer (3 months), or summer & autumn (6 months) – Summer (June-August), and Autumn (September-November).
The theme for the summer is the three Norns (Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld). They determine the fate of all living creatures by spinning the threads of life. And they water Yggdrasil – the tree of life – so the branches do not dry out or rot.
In the autumn, we will be visiting three different world heritage sites. These shawls will be published in September, October and November.
The cost for 3 months is $20 CDN. And the cost for 6 months is $38 CDN. Each month you will receive a brand new shawl pattern. The yarn requirements vary from shawl to shawl. For the first three shawls I have used 1 skein of Marks & Kattens Fame Trend (460 yds per 100 g), 2 skeins of Unique Sheep Eos (total 1280 yds, 640 yds per 2 oz), and 1 skein of Sappho II from the Sanguine Gryphon (440 yds per 3.5 oz).
This yarn has captured my imagination since the first time I saw it. The very first time I saw it was when Victor (aka Elemmaciltur on Ravelry) knit a Mystic Waters using it. That was back in 2007. The yarn is Wollmeise Lace-Garn in Pfefferminz Prinz, and I just love these blues and greens together.
Of course, as I’m sure you know, purchasing Wollmeise is tricky to say the least, and hunting for a specific colourway even more so. But I was very lucky a year ago, and Nikki (aka kurokids on Ravelry) offered me one of her skeins of Pfefferminz Prinz.
Since then, I have been looking for the perfect project. I have had several different ideas, but nothing that seemed just right. Finally this past weekend I began swatching for a laceweight cardigan. And I can tell this is going to be it. I cast on on Sunday evening and have managed to knit a few rows on the body.
The colours make me think not so much of peppermint as of turquoise oceans in the Caribbean.
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