A Green Butterfly

The shawl was knitted from mohair on a size 6 needle. I began this scarf near the end of June and finished it the second week of July.

At one point while I was knitting the main pattern, I had to keep saying to myself "one stitch, one stitch" to stay focused on the shawl and not other things.

The yarn is two strands -- mohair and linen. It has a wonderful loft and lightness but it is quite itchy. Not something to wear over bare shoulders.

This is also the first scarf where I have ever knitted nupps, which are a kind of Estonian bobble. A nupp is created when you knit 5 or 7 stitches into a single stitch and then on the purl row, you purl all the stitched together. A rather pretty effect. Also I learned that Estonian knitters used nupps to make their shawls heavier because they were paid by the weight of the shawl. Random factoid.

This was a shawl made in June while I spent a great deal of time waiting and worrying. The center rectangle is knitted from cotton and wool. The outer edge is knitted from silk which I hand spun. The silk is single ply and rather bumpy but that gives the lace edge more character.

The scarf became a gift for the wife of a doctor as a token of appreciation and gratitude for all her husband had done for mine.

I have never before given away any item that represented so much time and concentration, but under the circumstances, no other course felt right to me.

This is a scarf knitted from a pattern in Nicky Epstein's book "Over the Edge."

It was knitting on a size 7 needle with yarn handspun and dyed by my mom.

Knitting the circles and the tubes was a new technique for me and took lots of time. Before I started the scarf, I thought of only having 5 instead of 7 circles on each end, since the idea of making 14 of these circles seemed rather intimidating.

This scarf will be a gift for a dear friend (a red-head and very sophisticated) who came to my rescue (and my children's) during a tough time this summer.