Scribble Lace Shawl

First, I'd like to thank everyone who expressed their sympathies and lit a candle for Patrick and shed tears for us after reading my last entry. It helps, it really does. I also think that, wherever it is that Patrick has gone, it helps him, too.

I have recently finished two Knitted Things, but only have a picture of one - a Scribble Lace Shawl from the pattern in Mason-Dixon Knitting.

Proper credit is given by the authors (who have a lively collaborative blog) to Debbie New. New, I believe, is the originator of the term "scribble lace," and if she wasn't the inventor of the technique itself, then she was the Unventer. Unventing, of course, is the term Elizabeth Zimmermann used (unvented?) to describe the act of unearthing or re-discovering something and presenting it in one's own fashion.




You can check out Debbie New's inspirational knitting
(including Scribble Lace) in the wonderfully titled Unexpected Knitting. I couldn't find any blog or Debbie New-dedicated site, but I did find this wonderful page at Philosopher's Wool with pictures of her work, available as post cards.

Oh dear, if you've gone there, you won't be very impressed by
my scribble lace shawl:
But, it is purty, isn't it? Scribble lace is done with a very thin yarn (even thread!) and a very thick yarn. I did mine with KnitPicks Shimmer laceweight in Grape Jelly and the new(!) Noro, Silk Mountain, which is a curly boucle yarn that makes me think of leaves and vines. It doesn't have the dramatic color shifts of most Noro, but I think the Shimmer color also sort of dimished the color shifts it does possess.

About the knitting itself - you do it on BIG needles. These are Addi #17s. This was not a meditative, relaxing knit-up, even though the pattern is easily memorized. The laceweight was a bit slippery on the Addi's and so I needed to be attentive and mindful (which are not bad things to practice.) But my main problem with these needles is captured perfectly in the photo -- the annoying glare! I've never felt so....annoyed and irritated with knitting needles before I kept having to move around so that the glare was minimized. My eyes hurt just looking at the picture!

Martha at RiverWools thought scribble lace would make a good window covering, so I draped it over the porch screen. Paul liked it and was disappointed I wouldn't be leaving it up.

And writing of Paul, I'd like to publicly congratulate him on the acquisition of an alto saxophone! The cool thing is that he has never played the saxophone and he's taking it up for the first time. Now. Age 50. Whoo, hooo!

I've always been a proponent of the "never too late" school and remember the book of the same name by John Holt, whose ideas on learning and education were probably the most influential to me in deciding to homeschool. In Never Too Late, he wrote about learning to play the cello at mid-life. Yet more inspiration....
Is there something that you want to learn or do, but have been reluctant because you think it's "too late?"
Just something to think about....