Started: 24th April 2007
Finished: 03rd April 2008
Needles: 3.5 mm / 80 cm Addi Lace circs
Yarn: Rohrspatz & Wollmeise Lace-weight, 100% superwash merino, 300g Hank (530 m / 100 g), colour: "Poison No. 5"
Pattern: "Icarus" by Miriam Felton from Interweave Knit Summer 2006
"Nam ponit in ordine pennas a minima coeptas, longam breviore sequenti,ut clivo crevisse putes...postquam manus ultima coepto imposita est, geminas opifex libravit in alas ipse suum corpus motaque pependit in aura; instruit et natum 'medio' que 'ut limite curras, Icare,' ait 'moneo, ne, si demissior ibis, unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat: inter utrumque vola. (...)
...cum puer audaci coepit guadere volatu deseruitque ducem caelique cupidine tractus altius egit iter. Rapidi vicinia solis mollit odoratas, pennarum vincula, ceras; tabuerant cerae: nudos quatit ille lacertos, remigioque carens non ullas percipit auras, oraque caerulea patrium clamantia nomen excipiuntur aqua, quae nomen traxit ab illo. (...)
At pater infelix, nec iam pater, 'Icare,' dixit, 'Icare,' dixit 'ubi es? Qua te regione requiram?'
'Icare' dicebat: pennas aspexit in unis devovitque suas artes corpusque sepulcro condidit, et tellus a nomine dicta sepulti."
Finally, it's finished! I think that it's really beautiful. Even though knitting the body was tedious and boring, but the result was well worth it. Now I have to pack it up and send it off to my mum for her birthday.
I went to do the photoshoot yesterday and took about 30 photos. They all turned out so great that it was hard to choose. So, I picked out a lot of them. Hope you like them.
I chose some passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses "Daedalus and Icarus" and posted it above. If you want to read the translation, you can find it here.
Photos are taken at Königsplatz.
Here are some selections of the photos. You can find the rest of them here.
Current Mood: Good
This must have been the longest shawl-in-progress...ever! All my own doing, of course. I started my Icarus, named Carmelita, a looong time ago. Last summer, to be exact. However, I put it down for nearly a year, and just started knitting again last month. So while this shawl was technically on the needles since last June, I would approximate the actual knitting time at around 4 months (still pretty pathetic, I know). You can read more about the history of this project on my blog. I'm so excited that I finally finished this shawl!
This was an admittedly (and somewhat embarrassingly) frustrating process for at times, but I was determined to finish this shawl one day...even if it killed me. Now that all is said and done, I am able to look back on the journey with fondness and a great sense of accomplishment. I know it's just a little lace shawl, but it's a pretty big deal to me.
The end result is so rewarding. I love this shawl. Leftover proof of mistakes and all. I'll wear it with pride.
Thanks again, Miriam, for such a great pattern, and thanks to everyone on the KAL for sharing your inspiring shawls!
The next stage of Icarus really puzzled me. The only other lace shawl I've knit is Birch which starts with about 300 stitches and then decreases. Starting with so few, I assumed I was at the bottom point, but I couldn't understand where the lace would come in. Only gradually, I realized that these stitches were fanning out from an inverted "v" into the wide top of the shawl. And then when I was chatting about this with someone at my LYS, I found that this is really typical of Shetland shawls. So ingenious.
But after figuring out that puzzle, the excitement faded with all those hours and hours and hours of stocking stitch. What kept me going through this stage and stopped me from complaining too much was knowing that it's the simplicity of the stocking stitch that makes this shawl so beautiful to me -- the calmness of the body really sets off the busier "feathers" edging.
Finally, though, I got to the lacework -- challenging but not too difficult to keep track of, and I managed not to make any huge errors that would make me regret not using lifelines.
I finished late last week, September 7th, and then blocked the shawl outside in the sun where it dried in a day. I do wonder if I should have blocked it more aggressively -- I see more pronounced "feathers" on other shawls. Maybe next time, if/when I eventually have to wash it. Here it is blocking:
and even closer in
And finally, here's the way I'm most likely to wear it. I realized with Birch that restricting it to summer wearing wasn't good enough and found that it folds into an attractive scarf, more than doubling its usefulness. I'm going to do the same with Icarus which is a bit smaller and won't need so much folding. It's too warm here to try it with a winter coat yet, but I think I'll wear it like this through the fall and really enjoy its lightweight comfort. Not the best shot, but not bad considering my left arm is stretching out to take the picture!
Cast on: January 2007.
Cast off: 21 August 2007.
Knit in KnitPicks Shadow, in the Oregon Coast colorway. Edges beaded with jade chips. I used a 3.25 mm circular bamboo needle (metric knitting needle sizes make more sense, so I'm trying to switch... but that's a US 3) of whatever length Miriam suggested in the pattern... I forget. (Note to self: use a pointier needle for lace next time.)
More details and pictures can be found at my blog (either Blogger or Wordpress).
