Cross country knitting

A rather wonderful weekend in Devon with precious friends and a new baby meant that I have spent some seven or so hours on trains over the last few days. It could have been a recipe for abject boredom, but thankfully, I had my Yléonore shawl to get on with, as well as being lucky enough to witness some amazing views.

The Yléonore is a lace sampler - a circular piece of lace knitting that looks incredibly complicated but is actually deceptively simple, providing you take it one little chunk at a time. The pattern is from a designer called MMario KKnits (who I discovered via the wonderful Ravelry) and is based on crochet techniques from 19th Century Eléonore Riego de la Branchardiere.

I'm using Paton's Mirage DK for this project - a variegated double knit bamboo and cotton mix which I picked up from a bargain price in Wolverhampton's House of Fraser (note to Black Country yarn lovers). It's a mix of purple, blue and green which works beautifully with the expanding circles of the shawl's design. 

Clickety-clack go the needles. Clickety-clack goes the train.

Yléonore the first

This is actually my second Yléonore. I made the first for my mother-in-law as a thank you present for all the wool she had donated to me - erm yes, that did mean she got all the wool back again, but at least she had something beautiful to show for it! (see right)

My tip for this piece is to use stitch markers to break it up into manageable pieces. As the shawl grows, it does become easy to lose your way as the rounds eventually become several hundreds of stitches in length.

Each round is made up of a pattern block repeated several times, so placing a marker after each section or pair of sections makes it much easier to count back (and realise sooner) if you make a mistake. I spent so much time going backwards and forwards again on the first shawl that I often had nothing to show at the end of an evening's knitting!

I love the perpetuity of this pattern, with just enough variation thrown into it to stop it becoming repetitive, without being overly complex. Perfect for trundling cross country on a late Sunday morning.