The Sheer Glory of the Albers Shawl

I am crushing hard on the designs in Ann Weaver’s book, Craft. Work. Knit. I got my hot little hands on a copy of this self-published gem and fell in love. It was the good kind of love. The kind that inspires you to finish up a couple of projects so you can cast on something epic.

The something epic was the Albers Shawl. To me, this is no shawl. This is a blanket that you can see through. I used a yarn that is sacred to me: Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 2 ply. I wanted to make it for the best possible reason. I didn’t need it, I didn’t want to wear it—I’m made it because it is a beautiful thing, and because it captured my imagination. Something about the colors. Something about the hugeness. Something about the sheerness and stretch of laceweight yarn knitted on US 7 needles. Something about the log cabin block being square but not symmetrical. It just gets me.

My second favorite pattern in the book is, quite predictably, the Albers Cowl. Ann Weaver based each square on one of Josef Albers’ “portrait of a square” color study paintings. I didn’t need anything more. But then, she had to go and have her beautiful MOM model it in the book. Stop it, already! I’m knitting it! You’re killing me! Again, it’s the color juxtapositions and the asymmetry of each square. Hey—maybe I’ll give one to my mom.

Craft.Work.Knit, like Ann Weaver’s work overall, is a blast of fresh air. I got to meet Ann in person when she was visiting New York. I couldn’t attend her event, but we got together for coffee, and somehow I ended up driving her to Providence, Rhode Island that same night. (Knitters. What can you do.) Our conversation on I-95 that evening was the My Dinner with Andre of log cabin knitting. There were things I had been thinking about log cabin knitting that I had not even confided in my co-bloggette Ann, and I unloaded every single one of them on young Ann Weaver. Bless her heart!