I had the opportunity to take a class on Orenburg Lace with Galina Khmeleva when I went to the Rhinebeck Wool & Sheep festival. It was a whole day class that covered the basics of Orenburg lace. Galina took us through a bit of the history of the lace knitting cottage industry that the region has has been famous for for a couple of hundred years.
Orenburg lace is created from 10 motifs, in endless combinations. From simple cat’s paw motifs to heart chains, fish eyes and accordions, amazingly complex shawl patterns are created. It is garter stitch based, so not a single purl stitch is used on these shawls. Since the 1940s Orenburg lace shawls have had lovely edgings incorporated in the patterns. Before that they were only finished with a fringed edge.
Nupps were apparently banned in Orenburg, because they used up too much yarn. It’s cheaper to make a shawl without nupps (=more shawl for the same amount of yarn), and while they have appeared from time to time, nupps are not traditionally part of Orenburg lace.
In the class, we got a chance to try some of the motifs, and I knit two small swatches – on the right side is a sampler with strawberries, cat’s paw, diagonals, peas, honey comb and some fish eyees.
On the left (and still on the needles) is a border with two turned corners. I really like this construction of knitting the borders with the shawl – similar to what I used on Mystic Earth. The entire shawl is enclosed in borders and there is no cast-on or bound-off edge. It makes the entire shawl nice and stretchy, with no possibility of puckered cast-on/bound-off edges.
Galina also had copies of her book on Orenburg Lace Shawls, and I bought a copy from her. She even signed it for me. It’s really a wonderful book with a lot of history and background, as well as a number of pictures of Orenburg Shawls, and a stitch and border dictionary at the end. This book is a great addition to my knitting library, and I’m glad to finally have a copy of it.
If you ever get a chance to take a class with Galina, I highly recommend it. She was a very engaging teacher, and managed to cover a lot in the day that we spent together. Thanks for a good class.
After two fun-filled Seasons of Lace, I have decided to continue into the Winter and Spring with more lace patterns published as part of the Seasons of Lace knitalong. 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 winter (3 months), or winter & spring (6 months) – Winter (December-February), and Spring (March-May).
We have all grown up hearing fairy tales of different varieties – some from our parents and grandparents, some in school, some in books and some that have been turned into films. Fairy tales come in many forms, but the one thing they have in common is that they capture our imagination and try to teach us something about life. During the winter months, let’s snuggle up by the fire and read fairy tales from different parts of the world. And once the story is over, we can turn it into beautiful lace shawls that will remind us of the stories. Each pattern will be accompanied by a (short) version of the fairy tale that inspired the shawl design. The Fairy Tale shawls will be published in December, January, and February.
In the spring, the inspiration will come from folk songs. Each shawl will be designed around a folk song from different places in the world. These shawls will be published in March, April and May (2011).
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.
Please place you order here.
The cat is out of the bag…… As Knitgrrl/Shannon Okey announced on her site earlier this week, I’m working on a lace book for Cooperative Press. The book will be published in 2011, and I have been busy working on several new patterns for the book, as well as of course the actual writing. I still am not at liberty to share a lot of details about the actual book, but I can say that I’m very excited about this project, and the idea is something I’ve been working on for a long time.
This week I’m going to Rhinebeck to attend the NY Wool and Sheep Festival. On Thursday I will be attending a workshop with Galina Khmeleva on Orenburg Lace, which should be a lot of fun. And on Friday there is a workshop on Reversible Cables with Lily Chin. In preparation for the Reversible Cables class, I have been preparing a number of swatches. There are 5 different kinds of ribbed swatches with worsted weight wool and 5-6 mm (US 8-10) needles. Since I’ve been working with only lace weight and fingering weight wool all summer, the worsted weight yarn felt enormous by comparison. I am really looking forward to both workshops, and hope to learn some new and interesting techniques.
I will also be attending the festival on Saturday before I head home in the evening. I’m always scouting for new yarn for the KALs as well as the other designs, and I’m sure there will be lots of interesting vendors. On Saturday I will be walking around wearing the brand new Tanumshede Shawl. If you’re there, please say hello. 
Tanumshede is the second shawl in a series of three shawls on the theme of World Heritage Sites.
Tanumshede is known for its Bronze age rock carvings, with various motifs featuring longships, animals and people. These were carved into the granite rocks 1800-500BC. There are close to 1500 known rock carvings in the area, and more are being discovered. The Tanumshede rock carvings are in Bohuslän, Sweden – not very far from where I grew up. I’ve always thought they were quite beautiful in their simplicity, and have tried to capture the bold lines of the carvings in this shawl.
The original carving that I based the shawl on can be found at Massleberg. The picture below shows a longship carrying a dear with very large horns.
Tanumshede is a rectangular shawl/stole knit using one skein of Buttercream from Yarn Chef. I used the colourway Chateau because it looks like the gray granite in Bohuslän.
The pattern will be available on Oct 15 as part of the Seasons of Lace series.
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