Winter’s Earth
December 2010
Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds DK, shade 784 (119.8m)
Winter’s Earth on Ravelry

Every year, my local knitting circle has a Christmas party and, as part of that in recent years, we have a Secret Santa. Everyone brings along a gift and places it in the pile; in return, they pick a different gift for themselves. After everyone’s opened their presents, there’s additional fun in working out who gifted what! :-)

Whenever possible, I like to make something for the Secret Santa, though you don’t have to. In 2010 (somewhat at the last minute, I must add!), I knitted up a short version of this quick lace scarf for my contribution to the gift pile. It was originally meant to be something of a stashbuster project, but I ended up liking the yarn so much that I’ve since bought myself some more to knit something for me too!

The yarn is Rowan’s Purelife British Sheep Breeds DK (100% wool), in the “Grey Suffolk” colourway (#784). When I saw how it knitted up, and how bleakly beautiful it was against the lace stitches, the name for this project jumped out at me — “Winter’s Earth”. The pattern is Turvid’s One Row Lace Scarf, which worked up wonderfully quickly in the short time I had. In a similar way to Simply Turquoise, the lace pattern here was delightfully simple despite appearing so delicate.

I worked this scarf so that it was just long enough to go around the neck, and added some abalone shell buttons to one edge (using some of the eyelets along the opposite side for buttonholes). I felt this gave the advantage of a pretty lace neckwarmer, without the excess length/bulk of a scarf which I know some people do not appreciate.

“Winter’s Earth” was gratefully received by one of the ladies in my knitting circle at the Christmas party that year. In an odd quirk of fate, in 2011 I chose a gift from the pile which turned out to be from the very same lady who got “Winter’s Earth”!

Here are some photos of this lovely finish, including close-ups (click to enlarge):

It’s a year and two days since I last posted on Knit Lace, but now I’m back and hope to be posting more regularly again.

2011 turned out to be a year of too many deaths, too much sickness, and a helluva lot of bereavement and emotional “stuff”. As such, I went to ground for a long while, both online and off. I needed time to process, to grieve, to heal up. For a long time I stopped knitting altogether, but then slowly found my way back to my stitches — and in doing so, began to re-find myself in the soothing, meditative motion of working knit, purl, increase, decrease. It gave me a solace whenever I couldn’t face things; offered a space for me to let my brain catch its breath, so to speak, and also provided comfort when my heart felt like it couldn’t do this any more.

For those of you who read Knit Lace, you may remember Harpist’s Delight, a lace arrowhead shawl I knitted for a dear friend a few years ago. That same friend — one of my closest, my dearest, a heart sister to me — slipped away in January 2011, and her death hit me hard. We also had to say goodbye to one of our kitties, who took sick one Friday and was gone by the Monday. Sadly those were not the only deaths of the year, and by the end of December I felt like I should have a bingo card to keep track. Add to that some pretty nasty illnesses and trips to the doctor and/or hospital, and that was pretty much that.

It wasn’t all bad — there were some highlights, such as commissioning the build and design of my own harp, visiting sacred places, and heartfelt meals with friends and family — but on the whole 2011 was a year that I couldn’t wait to be over. And now it is.

So, without wanting this to sound all doom and gloom, I’m back and it’s 2012 and everything is sparkling and new. I’m not saying that everything is “all better” now, but it’s better than it was and I’m hoping to start blogging again regularly — both here and elsewhere. I’ll be posting the first of a slew of finished item posts in a little while, and then there will be more — along with WIP updates — over the coming months. On the needles at the moment are a beaded lace shawl, a sweater, a cardigan and a variety of lace shawlettes, so lots of things to keep me going!

Thanks for bearing with me. It’s good to be back. And so, knit on! :-)

A belated “Happy New Year” to everyone, and apologies for the radio silence at the back-end of last year. Things got kinda crazy in Real Life, but even so I’ve still been knitting — just not updating. Ooops.

However, today I’ve added in some old entries from an older blog of mine, all of which are knitting posts and some of which include early finishes of mine — not necessarily all of them lace (gasp!). These can now be in found in the archives, dating from February 2007 (when I started my knitting journey) through to November 2009, if anyone is interested.

Still to come — a post with a new finish in, and updates as to some WIPs. Watch this space… :-)