Newest Challenge--as if I didn't already have enough!

     Here is my latest challenge: A shawl knitted in cobweb yarn. I'm not sure if it will actually pass through a wedding ring when I'm finished, but it may come close. I can't imagine knitting with anything much smaller than cobweb, altho' I did knit two doilies with size 30 thread once. They were gorgeous (one was the Azalea pattern in Marianne Kinzel's Modern Lace Knitting book), I loved the way they looked but two things became very clear after I had finished them: I don't decorate my house with things like antimacassars and doilies (they tend to get covered up by whatever makes its way to the table), and knitted doilies are very needy items. As long as they stay undisturbed on the table top, they behave beautifully. If they need washing, they get very unhappy and refuse to go back to their pre-wash loveliness by sitting in a sullen, shrunken lump. They must be severely disciplined with pins or blocking wires--lots and lots of pins, much time spent attaching every point on the edge to the cutting board with all those pins and waiting for it to dry.
     I solved the problem of my needy doilies by giving them to a friend and a sister and undoubtedly, they have been sitting in a drawer somewhere, languishing for attention, because the new owners didn't want to spend all that time on them either. That was my last attempt at fine knitting but in the intervening years (30+) I have never lost interest in working another project--I just had to solve the problem of what to do with it after the project is done.

     I believe I have solved much of the problem with blocking wires, which I bought from Knitpicks a few years ago, and have tried them successfully on other lace knitting. So the new shawl is a go.
    
     There are better than 350 stitches on the size 3 needle (Knitpicks needle because it has awesome lace tips, and when the pattern calls for purling together four stitches, you want awesome!). Whenever I mention that there are over 350 stitches on the needles, I hear groans coming from the listener. But my philosophy is this: No matter what you are working on, it is knit one stitch at a time; whether it is eight stitches or 800 on the needle, you are still doing one stitch at a time. You just don't get a finished product as soon as if you are knitting on 85 stitches. It all depends on what you want. I want a challenge project, not an easy one (I've been knitting Entrelac chemo caps all summer; very easy and done quickly) and maybe just to see how long it will take to finish it. My target is a shawl about five feet long by three feet wide. I manage to get two to four rows done in the morning, which seems to be the only time I can really work on it. It is slow going, not only because of time restraints, but hand restraints as well. An entire chemo cap amounts to less than 500 stitches (if my figures are right); one row of the lace shawl is almost that, in one sitting, so I am knitting a cap and a half every time I knit two rows on the shawl.

The picture shows the shawl about a fourth of the way done. Can you notice a faint blue line running through the work? That is a lifeline, absolutely vital in a pattern like this. If the design should ravel down, there would be no saving it except to un-knit to the point where the run stopped and with 350 stitches on the needle, I think I would throw it away and start over!

This one is going to take a while, so will report back when it's done.