comfortably seats 3

I'm working on the second side section of Hiawatha. I think I'm about halfway through the 2nd of just under 11 pattern repeats of that, and should finish that section this week. That means that I'm close to doing the edging. I've never done edging on a lace shawl before, so this will be quite the learning experience for me. I'm going to try to learn how to knit backwards, so I won't have to flip the shawl around over and over again. I'm not sure how I'll like knitting backwards, but it should at least be a good wakeup exercise for my brain.

I haven't yet figured out whether it would be a good idea to weave in ends and do a preliminary blocking of the shawl before doing the edging. I was planning to leave the ends until after the edging is done, because I think having the edging there will give me a tiny more wiggle room when it comes to hiding woven-in ends. I'm really 50-50 on the blocking thing, though. I'm not sure whether knitting edging onto a blocked shawl will make it easier or harder to get a feel for whether the edging is coming out correctly, in proportion to the shawl body. Input on either of these issues is more than welcome. I'm sure things will turn out fine whatever I do, but I have a feeling that I could save myself some headaches by doing things one way or the other.


Completely unrelated to this project, I must again sing the praises of the wonderful people at Schoolhouse Press. On Friday, I had a few hours to kill in Concord, and found myself in a yarn shop. I wasn't overly impressed by the shop for the most part (overpriced, and too much breadth and not enough depth), but was very happy with their book selection. I drooled over a few books, including a wonderful book published by Schoolhouse Press. (When I say I drooled, I mean so figuratively. But the book was slightly water damaged, and I don't doubt that some other patron with excellent taste actually did drool all over it.) There was a particular sweater and sock pattern that I concentrated on for a good while. So much so that I kind of forgot to make note of the title of the book. None of the books on the Schoolhouse Press site rang a bell, so last night I sent them a desperate email, describing the patterns I fell in love with, hoping that the book was actually published by Schoolhouse Press. (How embarrassing would that have been if it wasn't actually one of their books.) I received a reply from Meg Swansen this morning, 10 hours after I sent the email. (And well before business hours even here on the east coast, an hour ahead of Wisconsin.) She thinks the book was Latvian Dreams, by Joyce Williams. That book does appear on their website, so I obviously didn't remember much about the book at all. Thank you Meg, and your amazingly quick psychic powers! The book is now at the top of my Amazon.com wishlist, and the only item there listed as "highest" priority. But I will remind my boyfriend that, if he chooses to purchase it for me this winter, he should buy it directly from Schoolhouse Press. We must support the absolutely amazing folks who produce books that are water damaged by our knitterly drool.

Speaking of Schoolhouse Press (I swear they're not paying me for this...), I will be doing a Sweaters From Camp Knitalong update sometime this week. Most participants seem to have dropped their projects for the summer (I hope only for the summer...), but there are a few women who have exciting updates, so it's time for me to do a post. If you're one of the knitalong participants and have progress you haven't blogged about yet, it would be great if you could get something up in the next couple of days, so I could include you in the update.