Fishwives Lace Shoal

Abelene speaks!

Published on February 26, 2021May 18, 2021 by Jen17 Comments

Hi, its me, Abelene. Its been a very long time since Jen has brought me out of my closet to model beautiful hand-knit things, but there is something really important that she wants me to show you right now . . .

um, something about recreating the original photo . . . what do you think?

After losing all of her lovely lace Fishwives prototypes within weeks of knitting them, and never even getting to wear even one of them in that fateful Autumn, Jen felt that loss almost as dearly as any. But after the wildfire, one of the first things she bought again was another ME, and the dear little hand-made fish shawl pin she had found on Etsy , which I had modelled the original prototypes with. Jen has just been waiting for another Fishwives stole to be completed, so she could put us all together, and here we are !

You see, Jen really wanted to bridge over to recreate the experience of ‘a pile o’ fishy shawls’ . . . and yet although she tried, she drowned herself in new designs to distract herself, which required a lot of knitting different and new non-lace prototypes, and never seemed to get around to making the Fishwives stole she wanted. An important anniversary of the year after the first one brought her to cast on but it sat, in a basket. Everytime she’d pick it up she had to relearn the chart, etc, typical knitterly & nonsensical excuses, which kept it from getting knit. Then very recently a real effort was made, and voila!

Splashing fish tails and waves are the Fishwives Lace Shoal signature theme, do you see them? ((shhh… but Jen is already casting on for another, a second in her pile o’ fishy shawls)) At last Jen has a lovely stole to wrap ~~herself~~ me in , again!

Ta ta for now, Abelene.

♣ ♣ ♣

Pattern: Fishwives Lace Shoal

Yarn: One very sentimental skein of Sweet Georgia Merino Silk Lace, brought with Jen when the wildfire came.

Project details: on Ravelry here.

All fun posts FISHY ! ~~ scroll to bottom of posts to read about the theme.!

very nearly finished…

Published on February 25, 2021May 18, 2021 by Jen14 Comments

A long awaited finished project is blocking finally ,

and attempting in part, to recreate this post of three and a half years ago, in our original house.

The summer of 2017 was a time when All Things Fishy was my focus, entertaining myself to a colossal degree while I researched subjects of “lace , as it related to fishing” . . . all the while whipping out on the needles four lace prototypes for the new pattern.

Two months later all four were burned to ashes in the wildfire. A year later, in summer of 2018, when we were living in the tiny house waiting for our house to be rebuilt, I cast on for this, really wanting to have a Fishwives Lace Shoal to wear. This stole has for some reason taken a really long time to get knit, but can now be posted next in a ” fully finished ” photo , very soon.

Knitters From The World

Published on October 27, 2019May 24, 2024 by Jen5 Comments

Fishwives Shoal makes a beautiful appearance in the wild of Sweden,

with Halvyllet’s Fishwives Stola . . .

There are some absolutely fantastic finishes of some of Jenjoyce Designs showing up in the Ravelry FO’s feed, and this being one that has inspired me to make a new series of posts on my blog ” Knitters From The World”. I so appreciate these exceptionally beautiful photos of the knitter in the wild, it touches my heart, thank you Halvyllet!

A work in progress.

Published on December 29, 2018May 24, 2024 by Jen9 Comments

jenjoycedesign, future loft room — My ” Loft “. December 21, 2018

I’ve been pondering a lot lately about how much of my life feels like a work in progress. Fortunately the house is ~ finally ~ in progress, but still I can’t even guess as to when it will be a finished thing. I just hope that we don’t move in and then take another several years finishing, like the … um… first time we built it. I recall sharing in this post, November 2012 when we finally put in the upstairs finished floor, and I finally gave my loft its finished paint coat. That folks, was nearly eight years after we had moved in! When we moved in January 2005, the living room was still a work shop, yup, we were living among chop saws and rip saws, and the like. I am so worried that this will be a repeat performance, but I know I should not worry, because it is a whole different experience this time around.

Now for a much easier thing, a knitting work in progress.

jenjoycedesign© wip

I can at least force myself to think about stitches to distraction, even if it does border on a sometimes extreme perspective in life where knitting is my meditation, medication, and dedication (oh, and revisiting Fishwives Shoal is proving to be quite the challenge!) I am hoping to be finished with this by my birthday in a few weeks. It would be a great present to myself to have knit this special yarn bought back when, this yarn that was among the few sentimental yarns I took with me when I fled the wildfire (although I brought none of my knitteds) and now I can finally make it into a knitted form. When I consider all historic elements of this project ~~ this yarn, this design, and this room ~~ it really is quite fitting that I should put importance on this small stole, for it represents a sort of cycle, and coming around to the origin of things.

Check out the original stole I blocked in the original house loft room, the very same space as the the top photo is showing to be again some day…

jenjoycedesignc2a9-sneak-peek-2 — From the Archives: June Into July

I don’t know how I can manage to post the past & future photos of my loft together here without drawing tears (now that is progress!) but the theme really is asking for it. This idea of accepting life to be a work in progress, and all we hold dear, for if we were not working in progress, how unchallenged & bored would we be. Anyway, after the holidays now I finally have a quiet little recess to explore unfinished projects, big and small, but mostly pondering what that means, and how leaving things unfinished is not good for me. It feels great to seek out this historic yarn I took with me, and to have the opportunity to finish it at last, and to post these photos of the house being built and anticipating my creative space coming together again. The house will be done in a blink, and there’ll be me next year at this time thinking & worrying about other things.

Fishwives Lace Shoal

Published on July 21, 2017July 25, 2025 by Jen16 Comments

The-Fish-Wife — “The Fishwife” by Edward Charles Barnes

This painting caught my eye last winter, and so when the coast was clear in spring I dove into a lace designing frenzy. For a while I have wanted to make a female counterpart to my Fishermens Neck Gansey, and so here it is finally ~~~ done & dusted! Inspired by the painting, and in the same colorway as the painting …

Fishwives Lace Shoal !

jenjoycedesign© small shawl & cowl together — Small shawl worn over medium cowl.

Fishwives Shoal = shawl + stole. ( Okay, plus a cowl thrown in! ) A play on words, indeed. As many of you have been reading all the fishy posts leading up to this one (especially Shoal or School? will help you get the name of my new design). Fish tails motifs with yarn-overs resembling splashes, and waves in-between create a beautiful lace pattern. Three styles, and three sizes in each.

The Shawl is square, and worn folded diagonally around neck double thick and tucked into corset, or just pin together. This one shown in pink is the small shawl(ette) size, while largest size, with diagonal of 64”, wraps around whole torso as a traditional Scottish hap does, and would also do nicely as a throw.

The Stole is just as a French neck & shoulder wrap, sized from wide scarf to full shoulder wrap.

jenjoycedesign© medium stole 1 — Medium stole.

jenjoycedesign© medium stole back — Back of medium stole.

jenjoycedesign© small stole 3 — Small stole.

The Cowl is simplest of the three styles, and knit in-the-round.

jenjoycedesign© medium cowl — Medium cowl

But of all the three styles, I think I love most is to wear two of them together!

jenjoycedesign© small stole & cowl together 2 — Small stole in rose, with medium cowl in natural white.

jenjoycedesign© med stole & small shawl — Medium stole in light grey, with small shawl in pink.

jenjoycedesign© med & small stoles — Medium stole in light grey, with small stole in rose.

Well that about wraps up an epic project. I will be laying low for a while, but soon back on another big idea I am sure. ~~ Boat loads of thanks to Wendy from Ontario for her test-knitting and generous help with figuring things out! Thanks Wen! ~~xx

Details on Ravelry pattern page over HERE

I will leave you now with some great old photos of a bygone era of real fishwives in their shawls…