Been working hard on the Syrian Shawl from VLT. I'd thought about making it larger, but decided to stick with the original body size and add some inches by putting a wider edging on it. Ms. Sowerby has some alternative edgings for a few of the designs in her book on page 183. I think I'm repeating myself here, but bear with me. The original edge looked a bit puny on the syrian in the dark dramatic Kidsilk Night I'm using. The wide point lace edging is another story. Very dramatic on this shawl. Take a look.
This edging is sooo worth the extra effort involved. I love, love, love it. This is going to take a month of Sundays to do since I only knit on this thing during the daylight hours. The yarn is just too dark and fuzzy to see well by lamplight at night. 
I had been having trouble with my needles not being sharp enough, but switched to Knitpicks and this helped tremendously. Then while knitting the edging on....same problem. My bamboo double-pointed needle was just not sharp enough. Solution: get out an emery file, sharpen that puppy up on both ends and put clear nail polish on it. Voila'. Works like a charm.
Night Shift
Well, I needed a night time knit, now didn't I? When in Dallas last weekend, I found some lovely Louet Kidlin Pixie at the Shabby Sheep on Boll Street. (She has lots of very cool stuff. When in the neighborhood, drop in to see. (No connection....just a very happy customer.) My Kidlin is the Colorado Spruce color which shows it's true beauty in the daylight with very subtle color nuances that you don't see at night. It is much easier to knit with at night however. I chose the Scarf with Number 20 Edging from...you guessed it.....VLT. It's a fast and easy knit so far. The Kidlin is a pleasure to work with.
I'm seriously thinking about doing something in the middle section to make the scarf a tad wider which will put it more into the shawl category. I'll either knit more rows of the middle motif or substitute something else. Jury is still out on that. Any ideas? Thoughts?
Knit on,
Arachne
