Yarn Along with Tasha

The past few mornings, I have been reading through one of my favorite books over coffee.  Like so many, I have been fascinated with Tasha Tudor since childhood.   Something about her homespun quality – her eccentricity – is comforting and always familiar.

Continuing the theme from last week, this morning the shawlette is being blocked.  It was finished on Saturday, but I have been under the weather, and just now am pinning it out on the guest bed.

This pattern is exactly what I needed – simple, quick, well-designed and a relaxing knit (it would also make a good first shawl for a new knitter).

I am tall, with broad shoulders, so deciding to do the larger version (178 sts before beginning the lace section) was a wise choice.  The fit is perfect, and only a small ball is leftover from the two skeins of Peace Fleece worsted.

I am already a few inches into another Handspun Delight Shawlette.  Having gone through the “stash dresser” upstairs, I found three skeins of a heavenly alpaca I was sure had long been used up.  The joy of being unorganized is that when you rediscover something lost, it’s like a gift to yourself – a pleasant surprise.

This time, most KFBs in the pattern are replaced with YOs (along the spine, etc), and the lace section will be extended.  It will make a soft embrace of a shawl and a warm Christmas gift for a loved one.

And now to join up with Ginny’s Yarn Along, but first a wintry quote from Tasha:

Sometimes when I’ve been throwing hay around, it smells like summer in the barn, and the sun comes through the windows and the cracks in the boards and makes shafts of light in the dusty air.  But I never long for summer in the winter.  What is that lovely quote from Shakespeare – “At Christmas I no more desire a rose/ Than wish a snow in May’s newfangled mirth.” That’s the idea.  For everything there is a season.