a simple yarn

Sometimes simple is not so simple.

Saturday last. Annual General Meeting of the Irish Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers. Business mostly.

But afterwards Lovely-Mary-Whom-I-Hope-To-Be-Like-When-I’m-Retired gave a little talk on her recent textile trip to Peru. Among the textilian treasures was this…

Handknit shrug, Peruvian-style. Pure handspun alpaca. Exquisitely soft. Overly simple in style. But how do they do it? On needles…yes, I know but…no seams. Just grafting. One big circle.

Looks dreadful until you put it on and then…the one end rolls into a simple soft shawl collar. The open stitches lay like simple lace. Then sides are tied with a simple plaited yarn with an equally simple tassle on the end. Simple. Simple. Simple.

I stood looking at it for ages along with Diane trying to figure out the pattern. What to do first…sleeves? How to do the decreases? What size needles? How many stitches? Not so simple.

Sigh.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not built for wearing shrugs and that there are too many other projects on the list that already come with patterned instructions. Otherwise….I’d simply have to figure it out!