Post-Easter

Now Easter is ower and I am feeling much better. Back to work and everything. I've been working on the shawl lately and am almost finished. Only 2 more rows (to and fro) left and then the cast-off. This is how it's been for the last few days actually. It's been harder to make time to knit after I finished LOTR on CD!

The shawl has been a real pleasure to work on. I discovered that I really like lace knitting. It breaks up the monotony of normal knitting and I have never liked routines! I love working with a diagram (probably something to do with being an engineer) and to have the variation from one row to the next. The main part of the shawl is mostly stockinette (slétt prjón) knitted back and forth which meant I really got to exercise my purling (brugnar lykkjur). Normally I knit in the round so I only purl ribbings (stroff). My purling has gotten a lot faster (not better, was good enough before!). Even with the stockinette knitting there was a goal to aim at because at certain intervals was a yarn-over row (gatasnar skv. bókinni). That really inspired my to knit on. The book (Þríhyrnur og langsjöl) is very clear and everything is explained very well. All except for the cast-off. It is a crochet cast-off and I will have to get some help on that one when the time comes.

No picture but once it is blocked a picture will surely be published.

Update: The way I learned to purl is different from what I've seen in books and on TV (could never figure out what the women were doing with their hand back and front while knitting!). I saw a reference to this method as Norwegian purling (the link takes you to a .pdf file). I always thought there was just one way to knit but when I started to read about knitting more I discovered that there are several ways to knit!