Back in 2009 when I was first learning to knit, part of my self-imposed knitting initiation was to read the entire backlog of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s blog, The Yarn Harlot. It was educational and inspiring as a new knitter to have such an intimate view into the life of a rather more experienced knitter. I realize this is hardly an original sentiment, but one of the things that really got my fantasy going was reading about the birth of the Snowdrop Shawl. I would have dreams about knitting lace like that when I was still struggling with understanding the construction of a hat. I knew the snow drops were completely out of my league, but that didn’t stop the dreams. I dreamed I was knitting it, I dreamed I was wearing it, I dreamed of it elegantly draped over the back of my sofa.
I found a lacy beret that was closer to my level and knit that instead. It seemed to take the edge off.
Then two years and some time passed.
In knitting class the other day, I was helping a student start a shawlette (she was using a gorgeous buttery yellow alpaca yarn) and we were talking about knitting shawls and the lace weight yarn I sell in my shop. I admitted that while I had swatched a bit with the yarn before I started selling it, I had never actually knit with anything in lace weight yarn ever. I actually said these words, “I’d love to knit a nice big lace shawl, but the right one just hasn’t found me yet.”
What a fickle knitter I am! I had completely forgotten about the Snowdrop shawl. It wasn’t until yesterday when I moved a hank of lace weight yarn from the drying rack to the “to-be-photographed pile” that I remembered about that shawl so long ago. Before I knew it, I was winding a ball of lace yarn and the pattern was printed and tempting me to cast on.
I didn’t make too much progress what with attempting to remain a responsible adult and all that rubbish. Though, as I knit each row and understand the movement of the yarn more fully, the more I want to work on it, responsibility be damned.
Of course, I noticed on the ravelry forums today that Knit Knit Cafe Podcast has announced their new knit along, and it’s a shawlette knit out of fingering weight yarn, and I know I have the perfect little yellow skein of sock yarn in the back somewhere. So I might get to work on that as soon as I get the other thing off my spare pare of size 6 needles. It looks like it’s going to be a lacy spring.
In the meantime, my shawl is Raveled here
and knit out of Oviraptor Lace Weight Yarn
on size US 6 needles.
What are your knitting plans for spring?