In Dwimordene, in Lorien...

Now that I'm mailing the shawl off to my partner, I can finally post pictures about it! On the off chance she looks at this post, she should look away unless she wants spoilers.

So, the basis of the pattern was various descriptions of Lothlorien. I chose Dwimordene as the name because it's really a riff on Lorien from a human's point of view, and Dwimordene is what the Rohirrim call Lothlorien.

The leaves are easy - forest=leaves - but I wanted to include flowers as well. We read about Aragorn standing on a hill, holding flowers and remembering his meeting with Arwen, and Sam's daughter is named after a flower that grows only in Lorien. The Rohirrim also have special flowers that grow on the graves of their kings. I finished off with arrowhead lace because of Galadriel's words: "But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended..." The wave edging was easy - we read about the Silverlode, Celebrant, Nimrodel and even Galadriel's fountain - so water had to be included.

I started with a miniature leaf motif in the center. I did a provisional cast on, then knit 12 repeats of the leaf motif up. From there, I transitioned to English Mesh, which works on the same amount of stitches and rows, and even has a row in common. This made making a transitional section a lot easier. I did 11 repeats of the mesh, which I consider to be flowery. From there, I ended with 2 repeats of the smallest arrowhead lace motif I could find. I then picked up my provisional cast on and knit the same repeats/motifs in the opposite direction. After that, I did not bind off, but cast on 13 stitches invisibly and began the wave edging. I didn't really miter the corners, but I did do multiple joins (2, 2, 3, 2, 2) to try to give the corners more ease and create a bit of a swirling effect. I picked up 2 stitches for every 3 rows down the long sides of the stole and joined the edging by knitting one picked up stitch every wrong side row, then starting out with a k2tog for the join. At the end of the last row, I grafted the live stitches to the invisibly cast on ones that I'd done at the beginning.

All in all, I'm happy with it. I could have blocked it out longer instead of wider, but what I did seems to look right. It would also be interesting to knit this in a heavier weight of yarn as a blanket or just a thick shawl. I might even convert it to a triangle shawl...I have some ideas floating around, but I need to take a bit of shawl/stole break :)

Now for the pictures:







And the beauty shot:



I love it when a plan comes together.

Sigh

Why is it that people who are not being trodden down have to make up stories about how they are, and then try to make you feel bad for not being sorry for them?

And why can't I just ignore it?

Long time comin'

Happy new year! I can finally take a breath, now that the holidays are here.

I've finished the Lembas & Lace swap shawl, and I'm just waiting to unpin it. It should ship out tomorrow - hallelujah! I so want to be able to work on something for myself again.

It turned out well, though I now wish I had more yarn to make it longer, or had blocked it differently. It looks good though, and I hope my partner likes it. These kind of things can be so scary!

I'm waiting for something that should have arrived before my birthday, but in reality still hasn't even shipped. Quite irritating, but what can you do? At least now I don't have to worry about whether I should give it away.

I'm really enjoying my Kindle wi-fi. I can basically read any classic that I want, since they're all either available from Amazon or from Project Gutenberg. Too cool. Patterns also look great on it, and since I'm not doing any colorwork right now, the lack of color on the screen is a non issue. The e-ink is so easy to read, and I can forget that I'm reading a screen and not a book. I'm reading Wuthering Heights to relax today, and it's just like reading my paperback copy! For $139 and free shipping, it's one of the best b-day presents I've gotten.

I'm currently waiting for my green tomato pie to cool enough for me to have a slice. DP thought it sounded too gross for words, but I figured it was worth a try :) I'll let you know.

I'm reading the Kalevala (on my kindle) and am constantly being struck by the things that remind me of Tolkien's work. The latest was when Wainamoinen is inside a sorcerer's stomach, building a forge and tormenting the guy. It reminds me of when Carcaroth swallowed the silmaril, and it was burning him up inside. The songs of enchantment are also similar, like when Finrod is having the contest with Sauron. Sigh - people weren't kidding when they said the Kalevala was a major influence.