Sometimes a finished object (FO) becomes so useful the moment I cast it off that I forget about it. I forget that I made it. I forget that I spent hours and hours working each stitch, fixing the many mistakes, and cooing over the progress. I forget that at one point I had to pick out the yarn for the pattern that caught my eye and that once this thing I’d made was nothing more than a concept in someone else’s mind.
The moment I cast off my Jane Eyre shawl I started using it. I wrapped it around my shoulders and forgot.
This shawl is my favourite. It’s not particularly fancy but it is perfect for me. It’s big, it’s warm, it’s got just enough detail to keep it interesting. I wear it a lot.
I remember the day I found Literary Knits by Nikol Lohr in my local library. I flicked through and found a pattern based on Jane Eyre. Awesome, I thought; Jane Eyre is my favourite literary character and her strength has given me my own determination more than once in my life. Still, I won’t knit something just because it’s named after a bad-ass woman since there are a thousand patterns out there that I already want to knit, badly named or not.
Then I noticed that the shawl was made in the Faroese style and I was done. I was sold. I had yarn at home that could work and I cast on immediately.
The shawl happened quickly and without much fuss. I loved knitting it but due to that love it was over in no time at all. The only real post I made about it was lamenting my tendency to play Yarn Chicken, which didn’t really cover how much I loved knitting that shawl, though I did recommend the pattern again in a later post about Jane Eyre-inspired knits.
I knitted this shawl… wow. A year ago. See? Time flies when you’re wearing something all the time. Last month I spent a few days camping near Charleston Lake and used the shawl the moment the chill picked up, and finally remembered that I should get some in-use pictures of the project.
The reason I love it so much is because of the shape. If you haven’t knit a Faroese shawl before you should consider it; the result of a small bunch of very windy islands, the knitters of the Faroe Islands put shoulder shaping into their shawls. Genius. Practical and stylish! It stays on easily and hugs you like an old friend.
Revisiting the shawl’s creation has been a pleasure. It’s such a part of my daily life that I forgot that I nearly ran out of yarn for it and had to buy more, and that I’d knit it in no time at all in my excitement. I’ll love it even more now.
(Though with the current 30 degree weather and 70% humidity, I might not be wearing it for a while.)
The Knitter Nerd 