knitting neels

Things are really moving along, aren’t they? It’ll be Hallowe’en soon. I used to associate the passage time with the impending horror of exams but, even though I’ve been finished college two years now, this is the first year I feel properly free from that awful constricting feeling you get in your chest. It makes the changing of the leaves and those chilly evenings coming in so much more quickly now all that more enjoyable. What better way to celebrate than with some nearly-finished lace?

Unblocked lace really doesn’t do the pattern any justice whatsoever but I think it will be very pretty. I was knitting on it last Saturday in the shop in town when Mairéad came in to see me. The pattern is made up for four charts. You work through all four and you’re finished. I was halfway through the second one and it was looking very small. Mairéad advised that I repeat one of the middle charts, otherwise my shawl would be very small indeed (“teensy” was the exact description). I figured this was advice worth heeding and the extra repeat didn’t stretch my patience too much – although I am more than ready to be finished with the purl rows now (the only drawback to lace, really).

This has gotten a lot of attention because I am travelling up and down to Ballina a lot to rehearse with the choir. We are travelling to Barcelona for a concert next week. I could take any more purling yesterday on the train back up, so I dug out my mitten and finished up the first one.

Again, a good blocking will get all those strands to tow the line. I’m travelling down again this afternoon and back tomorrow morning so hopefully by Friday, I will have some more to show!