Hanami Progress and looking forward to Lacis Workshop!

Things have been a bit stressful at work lately ... since I am taking off part of next week and the following week for the Lace Making Retreat at the Lacis Museum in Berkeley, I had to work a bit longer during the week and even come to work the last 2 Saturdays! But no, they are not exploiting me - I will be able to take off 2 days later, when the project is done. That's the curse when you are the only one in the company with the necessary language skills. It always works out that way, though ... I could be throwing a dart, blindfolded, at a calendar and say that is the week I want to take a vacation - it doesn't matter when - it will somehow work out to be the week when something urgent having to do with a German project will be surfacing. Sheeesh!

In the meantime, I'm making progress on the Hanami stole:

Hanami Stole - 8 Basketweave repeats plus 1 Chart A, with 4 additional rows inserted

Here is a closeup of the Basketweave pattern:

Basketweave pattern

And here is the transition to the cherry-blossom part of the stole:

Transition from Basketweaves to Cherry-Blossom part

Since I knitted one extra repeat of the Basketweave chart, I inserted 8 additional rows into Chart A where you see the 2 lifelines close together. I will knit 4 more 8-row insertions in the following patterns, because I will also shorten the very last pattern by 8 rows. The other lifelines show the pattern repeats - I left them in, because they will help me stretch the stole evenly later once it's done.

Within the last few days I (finally!) received 2 books I was waiting for:

Burda Praxis Strickspitze

and

Estonian Lace Knitting

The Burda Praxis Strickspitze book is a nice basic course of the technique of knitted lace or lace-knitting (depending on whether every row or every other row is patterned). There are several smaller projects in there - some look like Niebling designs to me, but the designer is not named - mostly doilies, plus lampshades, curtains, and borders. This book, which I ordered from Germany, is a lot thinner than I expected, but contains solid information.

Estonian Lace Knitting is fairly broad in scope, with a brief history of the Haapsalu lace knitting tradition, plus some nice scarf and stole patterns. In contrast to it is this book I bought a while ago:

= Lily of the Valley - Variations of a traditional knitting pattern

Maiglöckchen concentrates on one particular pattern which the author received from a Ms. Edith Haller, who was born in Russia. It is a basic Haapsalu Lily of the Valley pattern and is explored in many different projects: sweaters, moebius scarf, hats, bags, socks, curtains and a pillow. Both books together would make one great book.

During the Lace Making workshop I will try to post as often as possible to share what I've learned. I'm planning to take all of Galina Khmeleva's classes on Knitted Lace, so I can expand my knowledge of how to create a nice Orenburg Shawl.

Take care!