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!