Spring Things

Spring has certainly been in the air here. A chorus of frogs sings in the swamp behind our house every night, trees are budding and blooming, and crocus are popping up in the flower boxes. My thoughts are turning from sweaters and mittens to lighter things. Of course, that process has also been helped by the arrival of this book Haapsalu Shawl (Haapsalu Sall):



This is a coffee table book devoted to the Estonian knitting tradition unique to the town Haapsalu. The book has a brief historical introduction, an overview of the traditional design of the shawls (with handy explanations for how to plan and attach a separately knit border), and a pattern library of more than 120 stitches. I included a few of my favorite design motifs in the mosaic, but clicking through to the flicker stream will reveal a few more if you're interested.

This isn't a book where patterns are planned out for you. The mathematical formula is demonstrated, and the knitter is expected to use it to adjust for the lace repeat. The idea of knitting a separate border and sewing it on is also rather daunting for a beginning/intermediate knitter... however the instructions make it seem doable, and the results are so fabulous looking!

Also sprinkled throughout the book are women of Haapsalu (artists, writers, leaders) showcased with a quotation about the town and a shawl around their shoulders. Often the lace looks even more stunning as a whole than just one repeat can show, so I'm glad these photos are included, even if the entire directions for these shawls are not spelled out.

If you're interested in this book, Knit Purl of Portland has preorder open for another round of them. When I check several months ago it was possible to buy this book directly from Europe much more cheaply, but I'm not set up to do a European style direct bank transfer, so I sucked it up and paid the big bucks. Just for reference, I also have Knitted Lace of Estonia, and while both books are lovely, they are different enough in technique and stitch patterns for me to justify having both.

There is another review of Haapsalu Sall / Haapsalu Shawl here if you want to see more pictures :) This blogger has the version in Estonian, mine is the one in English.

Christmas Knitting

These mittens were my most ambitious holiday knit. The yarn was handspun and the pattern improvised to match the bulky gauge. Mittens knit on size 10.5 needles take less yardage than I would have guessed, which was nice. Although I started early, I reworked this project so many times that it was the second to last thing off the needles before Christmas.



My other projects were less colorful. One of my brothers got the exact same hat as last year, but in a different color brown. From the evidence on facebook he had pretty much worn the first one all year, so I thought it might be good to have a spare. To add something new to the mix, I also got him this print, which makes me think of the new heaven and the new earth. Had a bit of a hard time parting with it (it was the last. one. ever.), but I know that said brother will appreciate the art and the symbolism.

Other brother (as he is often called) got a handspun Gotland hat. The knitting was about as simple as it gets, the fiber was the star. Gotland really does have a great steely/green grey quality. I had to frog the hat back twice to get the size right, so it was finished only in the nick of time... sadly, no picture. This hat was apparently a win as I have heard that it has actually been worn... no word on whether the matching grey machine gun tie has been seen around town yet.

As of today, I am working on fulfilling two "gift certificate" knits. One of the projects allows me to fulfill my longstanding desire to knit something with gradients of grey...