Thursday, August 04, 2022

Fairy Dust Shawl

I finished my Fairy Dust Shawl! It is not actually called that but ”Stars in Your Hands”, beautiful design by Inese Sang, but I feel that it is like fairy dust or, as my friend said, it is like a misty pond early in the morning deep in the forest with fairies dancing over the water.
It is a lovely pattern to look at and to knit. There is a new-to-me, clever way of making the small nupps. The nupps stay on the surface with no desire to pop onto the other side. The shawl is huge, one of the biggest I have made this far, but I picked bigger needle that was recommended. I used 3,5 mm needles. The pattern includes a coloring sheet template, which is very handy when figuring out the color placement. And a little tutorial how to carry along the yarn inside the i-cord edge. The knitting was smooth and I think I only made one little mess right in the very end, and that was because I was thinking that this is done and was not paying attention any more… really, it is not done before it is done! 

Inese Sang has many interesting patterns and I will definately be following her to see what she designs in the future. I have two more shawls in my library and when the time is right, I’ll knit them as well.

When the time is right… and there is a problem right there. Lately I have been quite monogamous knitter, like one shawl at a time, plus maybe a sweater and socks. I consider that quite monogamous. In my case, this seems to be a problem. Obviously I need to have more on the go… After I finished Fairy Dust, I tried several different designs and yarns, but could not find a match. It is so so so so frustrating!!! 




(These last two pictures were taken in the same, cloudy morning, just different location… it is really fascinating to see, how the surroundings emphasize different colors through the camera lens.)

I had on my rip-back list one shawl that I started last fall, another Shawlography (I have posted one finished one on Instagram) and I pulled out the bag to see where it was heading and why I had thought that it needed to be ripped back. But months had done their magic, I vaguely remember that the colors were not the right ones and the shawl was abandoned. When I took a look at it, I thought that this is better than no knitting and decided to go ahead and go with deep reds instead of the light palette I had in the beginning. 

It was such a joy to be knitting after couple of frustrating days.

What I plan to do now, is to start a couple of shawls to have something to fall back to when I finish one. I am not sure if this works either, if all the shawls will resemble too much of each other, if I am able to keep different color palettes going on at the same time. Maybe this would be more relaxed way to start the next one, as when I pick a new project, it has to feel just right - I know you feel the same - but for me, finding that right project is a struggle. 

So, I am about to start a another one. I cannot say more about it yet, because I try to go on with relaxed feeling.


I have picked a bunch of yarns. I am often asked if I could give more specific color numbers and yarns for the shawls, but as you can see, there are quite many odd balls there without ball bands. I hope they work with the design I have on my mind. Keep your fingers crossed.


There is going to be lots of knitting this weekend. My knitting group is having a knit weekend, we’ll gather together to knit Friday night and all day Saturday. It is supposed to rain cats and dogs Saturday, what better than gather together, possibly have fire and roast marshmellows and knit and talk about knits and yarns and all things related (and not).


Wool with you,

Lene