A somewhat successful day

My pal Ana brought me a skein of Quiviuk musk ox yarn from Stitches West. What a fabulous present! It is the softest thing you can imagine, and according to its literature, eight times as warm as regular wool. I can believe it! I was torn about what to make with it, as whatever it was, had to be super special. A scarf seemed the obvious answer, but what scarf? I planned to start it in Hawaii when I had tons of spare time, so I took it and my Barbara Walker lace patterns book and had heady hopes and ideas. Several knitters had posted a shawl which I greatly admired and wanted to emulate. The Diamond Mesh pattern in BW's Lace Knitting seemed to be just the ticket. I started the scarf and actually got about six inches done, but this design was not very fun to knit. It required a lot of concentration, constant reference to the pattern, and pretty much needed to be done while everyone else was asleep - a rather limiting limitation. Also, I decided that it was taking up too yarn. This may have been a rationale in order to avoid an admission of defeat. I have long admired the Myrtle Leaf Shawl in VLT, and so next I decided to make my scarf with a couple of repeats of that. Somehow, I could not get that pattern to work out. I realized that there are errors in the book, but even using the errata page, I could not get it to work. I am not a very experienced lace knitter, and this one had knit togethers and yarn over’s on both the front and back, and was too much for me. A day or two ago, I had another go – this time from the center panel of one the rectangular shawls in VLT. This one is easy, only requiring a glance at the instructions at the start of each knit row. I am hopeful that now finally I will have success with my lovely yak yarn.

PS. I teased Ana by calling it yak yarn, then gnu yarn, then caribou yarn, and each time, Ana would patiently explain that it was musk ox yarn. Now it is yak yarn in my head. I like the way "yak yarn" sounds, and also I have an affinity for yaks despite the fact that I have never yet met a yak.