Feb 26
2007
|
Pattern: Easy Mesh Lace Triangle from Fiddlesticks Knitting
Yarn: 1 skein Fiddlesticks Knitting Country Silk Yarn (aprox. 800m/250g) I’m not sure what the colourway was called - autumn or harvest or something like that.
Needles: 3.75 mm bamboo circular(32”)
Modifications: None
I knew I was getting close to the end of this early in February when it reached to about my waist unstretched. I wanted it to be a generous shawl, and I also wanted to use up as much the ball of yarn I was on as possible, so I did a few more pattern repeats before doing the top edge pattern. When I finished knitting the shawl reached to about my hip, after blocking it falls nearly to my knees!
I especially like the tassels on the points of the shawl.
The original skein for this shawl was massive and gorgeous. I got it when we were on vacation in BC almost two years ago - well before my knitting skills were up to the challenge of such a large project - it was too lovely. I saw the sample in the shop window and bought the pattern and yarn together as a kit.
Last October I wound the skein into balls (it made three) and started knitting. The shawl starts as two stitches at the bottom point and grows as you work up to the top edge. This meant that it went really quickly at first and slowed down gradually as my skills increased (very handy). By the time I was nearing the top it took me roughly fifteen minutes to knit across a row.
The final bind-off was something different. The pattern uses a “knit 1, knit 2 together” bind off, meaning that every stitch was worked twice, and I had to keep checking to make sure my tension wasn’t too loose or tight (it actually ended up a kind of loose) - it took me an entire hour to bind of the top edge of I-didn’t-bother-to-count-how-many stitches.
Blocking was kind of fun. It was a good thing I didn’t make the shawl any larger or it would not have fit on the bed (my only blocking surface). It took a few tries before I had the edges pined out into a good shape. The top edge was quite loose and I had to stretch the sides a long way to even it out. When I was finished the top edge of the shawl was the entire length of our bed and the bottom tip nearly reached the opposite side.
A few statistics:
Pre-blocking measurements: 60” across the top, 41” along the side and 34” from bottom tip to centre top.
Post-blocking measurements: 75” across the top, 59” along the side and 44” from bottom tip to centre top.
A few comparison shots:
Pre-Block Post-Block
Texture
Stitch pattern