I'm back from a 13 day tour of England where my husband and I enjoyed hearing pipe organs every day. It was a grand look at the sights and sounds of British history seen through the perspective of the organs at churches and cathedrals and town halls in London, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge and Reading.
There was lots of sit-on-the-bus time which I turned into knitting time. I had planned my carry along knitting project since January and did not make a change in my plans, unlike other trips where I'm adding extras at the last minute.
Elizabeth Zimmermann's advice for knitting during travel is to start a shawl on circular needles and fine yarn. I swatched away at
Stephen West's Boneyard Shawl in January.
I wanted to get the make one left (M1L) and make one right (M1R) increases to flow from my fingers to the needle without having to think twice about which way the increases would twist.
I swatched the shawl by starting one on US#3 double point bamboo needles using some leftover sock yarn. I tried another increase, knit one front and back (K1fb), and decided that I really did need to use Stephen's suggestion of M1L and M1R. So I sketched out the twist for myself and got busy training my hands in the muscle memory of these two increases. The M1L is the easy loop that I form over my right index finger, like a cast on stitch. The M1R is more complicated; I pinch a loop in between my right finger and thumb and be sure it twists to the right. I call one increase "easy" and the second one I have labelled "hard."
I started the shawl on February 6 at 12:30 pm out in Arizona. Don't ask me why I was knitting so late at night. I'm guessing that I was getting my body clock adjusted to Arizona time after travel from Michigan. Anyway, my notes tell me that I began the shawl using
Zauberball Lace yarn and US#3 needles to start.
After the second ridge, I switched to an Addi Turbo 32 inch circular needle. Stephen's pattern uses DK weight yarn on a US#8 32 inch needle, so I knew that I needed the needle length and that a slightly larger than usual needle diameter would give me a soft shawl.
Then the project was laid aside. I jammed the knitting into my rollabout in March when we travelled back to Michigan. A new grandchild came in April and I concentrated on
a little cardi for Baby Val before leaving on our almost two week trip to Great Britain in May.
I finished the cardi and a quilt for Grandson Max, too, before we left on our trip.
Here's the shawl as it exists in late May. There are nine garter ridges already. The Zauberball ball is about half knit up. I'm estimating that I have at least 20 hours of knitting in the shawl already and probably that many hours to go before I finish.
I wasn't sure about the color but as the subtle change from deep navy to medium denim to soft blue unfolded before me, I can see that this shawl will be a fine accent for the jeans jackets that I love to wear. Not fussy, not formal, just practical and warm and a class act of handknitting -- that's what I'm envisioning as I knit.
Elizabeth Zimmerman was so right about laceweight knitting. I carried the shawl everywhere that we went in Great Britain. Tucked into the personal side of my totebag (the other side was the journaling and notebook side) along with my cosmetic case and umbrella, the knitting was near at hand.
The yarn would hook around the umbrella spokes and I'd find a loop when I pulled the project out of my totebag. Yarn is resilient and I worked those loopy pulls right back into the fabric of the scarf. A pull wasn't a big deal. Having my knitting with me mattered more.
I'm not good at getting going in the morning. Breakfast, while travelling, is not a meal that stays put. So in the morning, knitting gave me an anchor point, a place where my hands could perform a familiar dance and let my body relax. Often I wouldn't even need to knit many stitches before the calm of knitting would bring my stomach into control and I knew I would be okay for the day.
Knitting has so much counterpoint. Like a Bach fugue, you begin with a single row and a simple stitch. Then comes the increasing, the ridges, the changes in color. The fabric expands into a piece that is soft and delights the eye. Still the fugue continues, mingling stitch after stitch and row after row into the warmth of a scarf.
There is comfort and calm in knitting. More than just passing the time, knitting yields warmth and color, pattern and play, memories of travel and. . .a shawl.
Copyright 2012
Wanda Hayes Eichler
