Spring Shawls

The first shawl I knit in Zephyr was a Faroese shawl from Knitters magazine. It came out a little smaller than the original, which taught me a little something about blocking and merino, but it was a perfectly fine size, considering that I have a few (!) other, larger shawls for when I want larger:

My notes say it was completed sometime in 1998.

(I don't keep good notes about most of my projects, but the bare-bones list of what I've knit now goes back to the early 1990's. But that's a post for another day.)

Some time ago, in a moment of unanticipated chill, I lent the shawl to Diana for a few blocks. She was still little enough then to be tickled to be wearing Mom's stuff. In fact, she liked it so much, she asked me to knit her one.

Hah. I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb. No way was my kid getting a lace shawl in laceweight yarn. I let her pick out a color or two of DK-weight yarn, combined it with some stuff from around the house, and made her a Faroese-style shawl. As I knit, I could feel the ghosts of Faroese knitters of centuries past looking over my shoulder and shuddering at the acrylic baby yarn in greens Mother Nature never dreamt, but y'all know Diana and her thing for green:

It was huge for her at the time--I finished it sometime in 2003, when she would have been 4--so it didn't really get much wear until this Fall.

Then came a windy day when Eva saw Diana and me wearing our shawls, and the inevitable happened. In an almost unprecedented display of promptness, in fact, it happened within the following six months:

Apparently Eva doesn't like multicolored yarns; I set more than a dozen different kinds and colors out for her to choose among, and she avoided all the multis in favor of these. Even when I suggested including just one. Now, of course, she announces that she likes all the colors except the purple. Oh, and the ends on the inside: she doesn't like the yarn tails sticking out. (The yarn tails stick out, Short Stuff, because I know you're going to drag this thing all over the neighborhood, use it as a doll blanket, tie it in knots--if I cut the ends off flush, they'd be poking out everywhere in a week.)

This shot

is the photo of record, because, while Suzanne is high on the list of upcoming shawl recipients, the Faroese shape just doesn't seem best for her. (I could be wrong. I've been swatching some Brooks Farm mohair from last Sheep and Wool Festival, and it's a vaguely Suzanne color, and it may be headed for the Litla Dimun from Folk Shawls. But it may not, and anything that sheds--boy, does this stuff shed!--may not be a Suzanne yarn.) So don't hold your breath to see all four of us in coordinated Faroese shawls.