The yoke section of my Icelandic cardi is going really well. I’ve got about 6 or 7 more rows of the chart left to knit, which means I should be able to cut the steek this week. I’m excited. I love cutting a steek. Of course, I’ll try to remember to try it on before I get too crazy with the scissors.
I have been finding knitting on the cardi slightly difficult though. The weight is just a wee bit too much for my wrists, and my left hand (I strand with a yarn in each hand) starts hurting quite a bit after a few rows. Again, I think it is the weight. So I’ve taken it easy and tried to only knit a few colourwork rows at a time… though as the yoke gets smaller I can accomplish more. Funny that. ;)
Since I didn’t want to tax my wrists too much, I decided to wind up some yarn for a new project.
This:
Became this:
Which in no time at all became this:
This is the Annis Shawl by Susanna IC that appeared in Knitty a few years back. Great shawl. I knit it once before (and ran out of yarn and frogged the project) and it is a great quick lace project. The shawl is a crescent shape and is constructed from the bottom up and all the lace is done right up front. After finishing the lace chart, the body of the shawl it worked using short rows and it just flies. I had to restrain myself from finishing it too quickly. It is kind of addicting, and a perfect little shawl for an odd skein of handspun. To recap, this is the yarn I recently finished spinning. It was bought in batt form from Spinning a Yarn and is comprised of Merino, Shetland and sparkle, which I spun as a heavy 2ply laceweight.
The one thing about this shawl is the nupps. I love nupps in shawls, but I often have a hard time knitting them. I’m using my Addi Lace Interchangeable needles for this project and I just don’t find them pointy enough for doing a 7-stitch nupp, though I’m sure my fixed Addis Lace needles would be fine. Instead, I used a small crochet hook to draw the yarn through the nupp stitches and it worked quite well, if slightly more time consuming.
I’m quite excited to add this to my collection of shawls. I wear my shawls like scarves, so I expect to get a fair amount of use out of this shawl during the transitional months of spring and autumn.