Yes, Avital, I was referring to the medallion shawl in the Gossamer Webs Design Collection. She warns you up front that it is hard but that once you "truly" understand the method of the Russian patterns you can intuit the rest. I pretty much do understand the method and the patterns and no they are "never" symmetrical. You can not take half and then "mirror" the other half...You can in many European laces (like Shetland etc) but not the Russian. They always have an extra stitch either on the left inside border or on left or right side of the center. I have chronic pain syndrome due to an old accident and am on hefty pain meds. It makes it hard for me to focus and my memory gets funny very quickly...When I started my shawl, I decided to mirror the first 3 repeats, to make it less frustrating. I divided the shawl up with stitch markers into equal sections of 24 stitches with 25 stitches on the right side center (the center marked with a different color stitch marker) Both inner borders are 16 stitches and the outer border is what it is. Now I look at it and it looks great to others but I know that the stitches are not correct in the "mirror" image sections. It bothers the heck out of me, I can be very critical of my work. So, I am charting since I can't just gather it all in my head and retain it through the whole line...I think I have it then my mind lets go of it (dang short memory) So...I will chart that left side the way it should be (and yeah it will be "MY" interpretation of the left side) When I get it done...if your interested in trying it my way I can send you my left side charts. I am not sure how "neat" I will be or anything but I will be working in pencil at first so I can change things. I am on row 130 of my shawl already and will need to "frog" a major portion of this (probably everything down to the inner border.) I also found a few major errors in the charts in the book. Off the top of my head I can't tell you what or what patterns the errors were in. I have yet to inform Galina (I have her email address but she and her husband travel a LOT to do seminars etc on Orenburg lace) I will send her an email and find out if she is interested in my corrections or not. I did get the original book she put out. Gossamer Webs: the History and Techniques of Orenburg Lace Shawls. It has a large square shawl in it that isn't a medallion but it has the complete chart. It is out of print but it can be purchased from private sellers either new or used (very expensive) My copy cost me over $60.00. I will share the errors with you as soon as I can make them "understandable" to others. My way of notation and correction can be messy and illegible to others sometimes (yeah I work with photo copies of my charts so I can scribble) Yes I saw your picture's of your friends Grandmother's shawls...they were lovely. I am especially intrigued by the clustered stitches in the center of the diamonds. I am wondering if it is similar to the Neps in the Estonian shawls. (Neps are very very hard to do though quite beautiful) I am using "lacey lamb" by Jade Creations for the "gossamer" shawls and kid/Moreno for the warm shawls. (that way you get that fuzzy halo that the warm shawls have from the goat down) I think I used baby alpaca for the triangular shawl I completed (it is just a "tad" heavier than the lacey lamb)Nothing I have done has been stretched out yet and yeah I agree with you about the corners being a tad "tight"... I, like you, find the Russian graft method challenging...I found a much better explanation in a pattern of Galina's that was printed in Piecework Magazine. My sis brought it to show me and I copied the better explanation and will use it next time I graft again. I know that I did it "wrong" but what I did worked satisfactorily. If you want to chat more about the shawls, we can do it off list if this is OT...?
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