Annis

Annis, a photo by Project Pictures on Flickr.

Here's another last-minute finish for May. As the month drew to a close and I put the final touches on the Solar Flare pattern, I found I had enough time to do a little more knitting.

Since I still owed Cris (of Into the Whirled) a shop-sample of her yarn, I settled on Annis from Knitty.com.

Annis has an interesting construction. You must cast on from the bottom of the lace edge and knit upwards towards the top edge of the shawl. I'm far more accustomed to working in the other direction. So the first thing I ran into was a cast-on of 360+ stitches. Yes, over 360 stitches! Yikes! I'm not going to do that twice, so I pulled out a little trick. You can take the end of your yarn from the outside of a center-pull ball, and from the inside, and join them. Then you have the entire ball to use for casting on! No chance of running out. I take it one step further. Many people tie a knot and then work in the two ends later. I untwisted the plies and then twisted them all back together in an invisible join I like to call a "Spinner's Join". If you do it for 6 inches or so, it's almost impossible to find again later. Plus it has the added benefit of no ends to work in.

Cast-on done, I began to knit. It's easy enough to follow the pattern, but not particularly enjoyable to work with that long of a floppy-twisy cast-on until you have enough rows in place that the knitting behaves.

It also has nupps. I love the way nupps look, but I wasn't enamored with the thought of working them again (I'd had quite enough with the Echo Flower Shawl, thank you!). I opted for beads, instead. Lovely brass-colored glass beads that look fantastic against the deep wine-red of the yarn. Yum! Only.. I ran out just a couple of beads short and had to go back for another whole vial to finish. Harrumph.

Still it was worth it. I added those beads in again at the upper edge and they draw the whole shawl together. I really hope Cris enjoys hanging this in her booth!