Another lace shawlette finished -- Summer Nightsongs

Wow, I thought that I would never finish another project. Summer Nightsongs just seemed to take forever. Yes, I was sick; yes, I had a baby quilt to finish; yes, I was trying to work on two projects at the same time. But regardless of everything that was going on, this project seemed to take longer than sweaters I have made. For some reason, I had a really difficult time with this pattern. There were a couple of rows -- 9 and 11 -- of the edge chart that just about finished me!

But that does not mean I am finished with lace knitting. No! Actually, I would try THIS pattern again! And I would make it much larger for a full sized shawl. Besides a change in the size, I would also knit it in a solid color or tonal so that the pattern stands out more than the yarn. As you can see from the picture below, the pattern is lost a little in the stripes.

By the end of the project, I was much happier with the Crazy Zauberball yarn than I thought I might be. While I loved the softness of the yarn right from the moment that I picked it up, I was afraid that it would split a lot as it was knit. But the yarn held up surprisingly well considering how many times I ended up knitting some of the rows.

I made fewer repeats than called for in the pattern. Using a spreadsheet, I calculated out how many stitches were in each row, then, being the accountant (read: "nerd") that I am, calculated out what percentage of the pattern that I had completed for each row. As I finished every couple of rows, I weighed the remaining ball of yarn and it seemed as though I was completing a smaller portion of the pattern than I was using up the yarn. So, when I was at the point where I would have had to make another repeat, I started the edge row. I did end up with 28 grams of 100 left over. I might have had another repeat worth of yarn left -- but I might not have either!

The author of this pattern, Jane Araujo, links to some good tips from other knitter from the pattern's Ravelry page. You will do well to read them too. I ended up following the pattern modifications suggested by fascine.

Well, I am on to finish the Alexandra that I tried to do simultaneously to this shawl. We all have to learn from our mistakes!

Happy Knitting!

One Shawlette Done, Another on the Needles.

I finished my Fall Colored Ginkgo shawlette last Monday, but did not have time to block it until today. It is upstairs drying as I write this. I ran by Jo-Ann Fabrics this afternoon and picked up another 50 pins. I am glad I did, because pinning this one out took every pin in the house. I should have put more pins along the straight edge at the top of the shawlette, but I did what I could.

I should have called this the Tiger Eye Shawlette! I like the way the stripes look now that it is stretched out. For awhile I thought that the stripes were too pronounced and too dark, but now that you can see more light coming through, it is much nicer.

I bought yarn on Monday night to start the Alexandra Shawl and the Haruni. The Alexandra is Dee O'Keefe's latest design. It is beautiful -- very geometric. The Haruni is a shawl by Emily Ross. It has a lovely "star" at the center tip of the shawl. Both these shawls will be summer shawls -- light and airy. For both I selected Knit Pick's Shadow Tonal. For the Alexandra I picked Golden Glow and for the Haruni I picked Blue Violet. The golden is a very pale yellow and the blue violet is more lavender than violet.

Since I did not pay for express shipping, I knew that the yarn would not get here until the end of the week. This put me in a dilemma as I knew I wouldn't be able to not knit for four or 5 days. What would I do on my train rides? But if I started a new project, it would not be done before the yarn for the Haruni and the Alexandra arrived. This meant that I either I would have to wait to start the Alexandra or I would have two shawls going at one -- as if that has never happened before.

So, I decided that I would go ahead and start a new project anyway and I would have to have two projects going at once.  I started a small shawlette called Gail or Nightsongs by Jane Araujo. It is a really beautiful with leaves that look more like peacock feathers than leaves. The yarn I selected was some that I bought myself for a birthday present. I was saving it for a very special lace project. It is a lovely blue, green and rust Crazy Zauberball. This yarn is two ply with each ply a different variegated color. Yum. Rich colors with a great effect. The plies do split a bit, but as long as you are careful, it isn't too bad.

The Knit Pick's order arrived yesterday and I spent the whole evening hand winding one of the Golden Glow hanks into a center pull ball using my Nostepinne. This meant that I did not cast the Alexandra on until this morning. I have only gotten about the 1st 30 rows done, but I did want to get started as the designer is hosting a KAL (knit a long) on Knitting Paradise.

Well, I have better things to knit, er, do; so I will close this post.

Happy knitting!