cosymakes

lace butterfly stole – hanging, originally uploaded by cosymakes.

lace butterfly stole

for the thesis. made using stitch patterns and based on the descriptions of shawls in the book Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls by Martha Waterman.

size 8 needles
Manos Del Uruguay hand dyed, handspun wool, recycled
stitches: butterfly lace and irish moss
pictures by amanda, during a misty rain
length, wingspan, as recommended by the book

first, let me tell you the story of this yarn. i have this thing. my mom calls it forecasting and says my father does it also, but i call it ‘holy spirit intuition’ and it’s sometimes serious, and sometimes frivilous. this is it at its most frivilous moment.

so, quite a while ago i was reading this story of a thrifted manos sweater. it was after i had started recycling sweaters for wool and i was searching for good stories of such things. the minute i saw this, i thought, not fair! i want to find a manos sweater to recycle! it was really just a silly passing thought, but it inspired me a bit more the next few times i went to the thrift store. just the possibility.

then one day, not much later, i was in one of my local thrift stores and happened to glance to my right while walking by a rack… and what did i see? right on the front of the rack? a clearly ugly, folk-artsy, wool, children’s sweater. i remember the front had horses and dogs and maybe other animals. i feel like there may have been people riding the horses. anyhow, i start examining the sweater with excitement and when i looked inside- i kid you not, it was a manos del uruguay sweater. the back and arms of the sweater were this amazing blue color and the wool it was made out of was a beautiful little single, unlike any manos i’ve ever seen in a yarn store. i was elated.

when i got home i immediately started frogging the sweater. i really wanted to make it into some sort of shawl. so, i started the infamous clapotis that was all the rage. it went for quite a ways, in fact i was almost done with it when i set it aside and never finished it. it was a lovely pattern and interesting in concept, but i had doubts about how much yarn i had… and if there’s one thing i’ve learned about myself, it is that i prefer traditional knitting or traditional knitting with a contemporary twist. clapotis did not keep my interest and i am so glad because I LOVE my butterfly shawl.

the rest of the manos sweater you ask? it resides here – in milk bottles on my bookcase. it makes me happy and sometimes i raid it for embroidery yarn. sigh.

so that’s the story. you can see more pics of the shawl here… in my flickr. my favorite part? i love the whole thing, but it was my first time using irish moss and i love the thick irish moss borders and the way they hang.