Prep and Landing

Don't you just love that cartoon at Christmas?  It makes me laugh every time I see it.  But, I think it is a good title for a blog post as well.    I signed up for Denise Bell's Class at Stitches Midwest, The Unst Effect: Shetland Shawl.  Denise goes to Knit Camp and I have known her for a couple of years.  Not only do I super love her yarn Lost City Knits, but I super admire her shawls that she has designed and knitted.

I've had a couple of Shetland Shawls on the needles for awhile, so it seemed like the perfect class to take and well, since, I know the instructor, I thought it would be super fun to take a class in an avenue of knitting that I am really interested in.  One of the pre-requisites for the class is that you have some experience in knitting with lace yarn.  Now, I am not sure if icelandic lace weight really qualifies (not that it isn't lace, it just has a different feel than your typical soft laces) so I decided to do a bit of prep for my class this Summer.

I started out by hauling some of my books that have Shetland in their name.

And then I found more.

All of the new finds were books that I have collected from Schoolhouse Press every year at camp.

Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting  is chock full of information.  It may take me awhile to absorb it all.

There were so many possibilities out there that it was time to consult the experts and write some thoughts down.

I did a bit of swatching on Denise's Lost City Silk.  I consulted with Denise via Facebook, and probably about the time she was responding, I decided the silk needed much more than garter to show it off.  Denise was of the same opinion.  It really needs some lace to do it justice.

That and a size 3 needle and all that garter might take a year or two to get the center square done.  Back to prepping and perhaps landing something later.