Here's my darling Enrique, when he was just a baby, looking pretty scrunched-up and unattractive. He's 100% merino wool, but has a very different feel from Jean Claude (May 5th entry) , who is also 100% merino. You may recall that merino wool is renowned for being possibly the softest sheep wool out there. The yarn used to create Enrique has quite a bit of twist in it. Hey, anyone out there a spinner? Can you explain why the yarn is so twisted? One of the advantages is that this yarn looks almost silky, and has quite a sheen to it.
The pattern for Enrique is on p. 134 of Victorian Lace Today, by Jane Sowerby. This is my first triangle shawl, and it is so much fun! I started at the point with one diamond, then two, etc., until I had fifteen.
The triangle shawl is very different from a rectangle or a square because of what's known as bias. If you sew, you know this means cutting the fabric obliquely or diagonally across the grain instead of with the grain. A bias-cut skirt hangs differently than one cut with the grain. You can actually get some stretch by cutting diagonally across the grain. Enrique was incredibly stretchy just by virtue of being triangle-shaped, or created across the bias.
Here's a detail photo of the crocheted picot border around the neck edge:
View of the front:
