Frisian Frillies

The shawl came off the needles a while ago, but I promised I'd blog about it - also because I used some needles I testdrove for my lovely LYS at Wereldwol. She had ordered a bunch of bamboo needles from Chiaogoo and wanted to know whether they knit well. And what better to knit on bamboo circs than a humongous gigantic shawl? I had a skein of Scrumptious Lace and it proved the perfect yarn for the Cypress Triangle, a pattern by Dorte Ronnov which was adapted by Marieke from a square into a triangle. De omslagdoek is al een tijdje van de naalden af, maar ik had beloofd er nog over te bloggen - ook omdat ik er naalden voor heb gebruikt die ik heb getest voor Wereldwol. Marieke had een paar Chiaogoo-rondbreinaalden van bamboe besteld en wilde weten of ze wel breiden. En wat kun je daar dan beter mee breien dan een gigantische supergrote shawl? Ik pakte er een mooie streng Scrumptious Lace bij dat die was voor een Cypress Triangle, een patroon van Dorte Ronnov dat door Marieke is bewe...

It's already been a week ago, but only now have I got some time to blog about the Estonian lace workshop I took last weekend. In the meantime we've been working hard at removing wallpaper... and then sticking new wallpaper on the walls. It does look a lot better now, and we hope it will make the house a bit more sellable! Back to the workshop! On invitation of  Wereldwol , the two Dutch Knitters  came to Leeuwarden to tell and teach us all there is to know about Estonian lace knitting (in a day!). The morning started off with a cup of coffee and Madeira cake, while Hilly and Carla told us more about the history of the shawls and showed us some beautiful examples they knit themselves or bought in Estonia. The tools, the explanation and the business card... Ready, set, go! Hilly and Carla, our teachers, who (I suspect) know more about Estonian lace than the Estonians themselves... Our knitting table, in the lovely airy and light upstairs room of Pitch 'n Putt in Zui...