I was rummaging around various knitting sites for an unrelated reason, when I came across the story of the Queen Susan Shawl.
The Queen Susan Shawl is a collaborative project on the Heirloom Knitting forum on Ravelry. Several knitters had noted an old photo of a lace shawl in the Shetland Museum photo archives and together more than thirty knitters have recreated the pattern based solely upon the photo. The Queen Susan shawl pattern will be released early 2010 - and it will be free.
Meanwhile, the Shetland Museum has been very enthusiastic about the project and even has included the Ravelry group in their Call For Papers for a forthcoming knitting conference in the Shetlands.
I always get slightly misty-eyed whenever I come across stories like that. Am I going to knit the shawl? Probably not right away as the scale of the project is quite daunting, but someday I would like to try my hand at a proper heirloom-quality Shetland shawl.
Right now, though, I've realised that we are off to Denmark NEXT WEEK and David's sweater is still not done.