Ene's Scarf - A Lace Knitting Journal
I have made a few feeble attempts at lace knitting within the past year. This project, this pattern, and this yarn, feel right to me. I have not completely abandoned my former attempts but I think this will be just the thing I need to gain some knowledge and confidence in lace knitting.
I received "Scarf Style" as a gift last fall from my friend Allegra. The book was received at a time when I was really gathering a lot of emotional strength and support from friends through my blog and the book was such a relaxing place to go. Look at pictures. Dream about the patterns. Imagine the possibilities.
The Nancy Bush pattern, Ene's Scarf, was a delightful surprise within the pages. (I hadn't seen it knit or mentioned often in the circle of blogs that I read on a regular basis.) I have fallen in love with every Nancy Bush pattern I have met, I'm sure in part because my dear friend Margene is personal friends with Nancy. It's a silly thing to say but I guess I feel some kind of bond with Nancy through Margene's friendship with us both, and of course through knitting her patterns.
Around the same time as I received this book I also developed a yarn colorway called Maple Sugar Candy. I dyed one skein of laceweight yarn in this colorway and offered it on my blog but I did not put it in my Etsy shop. Something about this yarn, the colors... I secretly wanted to keep it. And nobody bought it.
The skein of laceweight stayed in a basket in my kitchen since last fall. Unlabeled. Not ready to ship on a moment's notice. And it was quietly calling to me. Always staying within sight. Whispering each time I went to the stairs or pantry... patiently waiting for me to give in and knit something with it.
Last week I started knitting the Avalanche Vest for Dulaan and decided that the Maple Sugar Candy laceweight would be a perfect carry-along yarn to go with the homespun I made in the same colorway when I knit the button band into the vest. This was a perfectly good reason to wind this yarn into a ball. "But no... that might tempt me just a little too much," I thought. "I'll only wind off a small ball for the vest project."
And that's exactly what I did. A small ball. Just for the vest. But the skein... it stayed out on my ottoman directly in front of my knitting chair... boldly daring me to wind the rest into a ball. It's just an innocent ball of yarn you know. Er... well... as any knitter knows, there is no such thing as an innocent ball of yarn.
In the mean time, my friend Lynda of Knit Together... Wonderfully Made cast on for Ene's Scarf herself, using laceweight her daughter dyed in the same base yarn as my Maple Sugar Candy.
I finally broke down while desperately searching for something easy to do while watching LOST on Wednesday night. I wound the yarn into a ball. The next morning I woke to find Lynda had finished the beautiful Ene's Scarf. I was done. There was no other option. I had to cast on. Thursday night I carefully cast on 375 stitches. Counted. Recounted. Knit the first two or three or maybe four rows.
We (the yarn, the pattern, and I) have now finished 6.5 rows out of 179 total rows. One blessed thing about this pattern is that every row gets smaller. *whew*
