Osborn Fiber Studio

Right now, I am in the unusual position that everything I have on the needles is my own design. And half of them are gifts. So I really have nothing to show you, despite the fact that I really am knitting feverishly. I did, however, find occasion to do something I had never done before that I can show you.

Some knitters have a thing for fancy lace shawls. We are a little thick in the head, I think, because knitters are supposed to be practical types. Sure, some lace shawls are quite wearable in the every day, and you can make all the arguments about lace trapping air and thus being very warm. But more than once I have found myself casting off a particularly epic bit of lace, blocking it, photographing it, and then realizing that it will never be taken out except to go to craft fairs and art shows.

Case in point? I finished the In Dreams shawl about six months ago. On Saturday night I wore it for the first time.

The Edgeworth Club in Sewickley is possibly the only locale within 100 miles that is swank enough for me to wear In Dreams and fit in. It’s the sort of place that they could have used to televise a Lord Peter Whimsey novel. Saturday night was a a big fundraising party for a ministry in our town that engages in the amazing work of healing whole people. The night included inner, speeches, testimonies, and a Dancing with the Stars-esqe competition with local celebrities (I don’t have a TV to watch the local weather forecast, so I was in the dark). Tickets cost more than our grocery bill for the month, but we were invited guests since Jared has been working with the ministry. It was such a treat. Jared dug out his tux and looked completely dashing. I found a cocktail dress I’d bought at a thrift shop and hadn’t worn since my honeymoon, did hair and makeup, found a little black purse to stuff in a sock-in-progress, and draped myself in handspun merino-silk and glass beads.

At the end of this week, the shawl will be worn again, at an art show. As a piece of art. That’s just about the only other use I can think of for it, until I enter it in competition at Sheep & Wool in the spring. Oh well! Most of my knitting is at least sort of practical. Some has to be just because it’s pretty.