An end, a begin… and a mistake

The Old Shale Shawl is finished and awaiting to be blocked. I promise it will happen some day!

The pattern by Amanda Clark is free and really easy to follow. I’m very happy with the finished object and it took me only 4 years… yep.

Short after the Nurmilintu Shawl was cast on, because I just couldn’t wait to try that pretty yarn. It’s Natural Dye Studio’s Dazzle, a British wool, 100% Bluefaced Leicester, in delicate shades of blues, greens and purples – very soft.

The first section before the lace is done

but obviously not everything could go well…

Sigh

See what happened?

That’s about 3/5 from the start. Mep

Whatever. It’ll get a lifeline (because this yarn is very slippery and would unravel to the next rows before I could blink) and hopefully I can recover from there. Not tonight though.

By the way, yes, I love blue and green, if you were wondering.

The weekend was overall quite productive and some tidy up was done, which leaves one with such a good feeling!

Some vintage yarn purchase also happened, because really, I need to build back some of my “collection”. And some antique silver – my new interest since I read some blog posts on silver items! Contagious. But expensive, so only done in wee bits. The best buy was a spoon with my initial engraved (well not mine originally but we share that letter), so now I feel very decadent to enjoy yoghurt with an antique silver spoon (1853) – that is when it arrives!

How was your weekend?

It’s growing!

Just past row 132 out of 145, which is about 90% done.. I really look forward now to seeing it completed!

Not sure how I’ll manage blocking such a large piece as I have neither space nor specific tools. I’m sure I’ll get creative in the end – I think it won’t be a stylish solution but as long as it’s effective, I’m fine with it.

The colours are a bit hard to capture but the closest is the first picture.

I’m planning for the Super Birthday Sweater I mentioned in my last post, but won’t probably start until June for the Fringe Association’s Summer of Making – I’m thinking of joining in, but haven’t decided yet, I might take part even if I won’t be able to finish 4 projects in 3 months. So far I’ve short listed two jumpers, one summer top, a folk shirt I’ve been wanting to make for ages and a pair of simple cable socks (because never done cables, so that’ll be easy!). A bit too ambitious? I won’t stress wanting to finish it all.

Have you planned projects for your summer (or winter if you live on the other side of the globe)? Or will you just decide as time goes on?

My first socks!

I’m wearing my first pair of own made socks and I love them!

Here a few quick shots just as I was walking out of the door…

I’ll post details and better photos later

I’m now working on a long-paused WIP – the Old Shale Shawl free pattern. I had stopped it long ago when I discovered a blatant mistake in the stitch alignment, but have since unraveled back and restarted knitting. Some old pictures of the shawl, which is pretty much as it looks now:

All is good! Have a lovely day!

Is it destiny?

I restarted work on the Old Shale Shawl, but after about 20 rows of 200+ stitches, there was something not quite right: while the total number of stitches was correct, their distribution was slightly out of the main axis. After checking and counting again, I spread the shawl open and, horror, I noticed where the issue came from:

The main axis was shifted by a couple of stitches.

Is it destiny that I unravel it back to that point? That’s more or less the same point where the shading didn’t fully match.

Of course, I would rather not do that, considered the 200+ sts in each row – about 20 of them. Also, it seems difficult to place a lifeline following one row, because the horizontal pattern is not laying straight.

Alternatively, I could perhaps attempt something that I’ve read about, but have not much confidence in trying out here: unravelling just a vertical line of ~4 stitches. It’d probably be an easy task for an experienced knitter, but this is not the case for me 🙂

What would you do?

Houston, We’ve Got a Problem

In the previous post, you have seen the last error-free picture of the shawl. Sadly, immediately after I took that picture, I ran into a problem…

 

The natural shading no longer matches with the previous repeats. Sigh.

My rational side suggests to place a lifeline, unravel back to the end of the last fan motif and reknit with matching colours. The practical side of me, who would like to avoid the hassle and finish this before next week, is not agreeing so much.

For the moment I just left the shawl aside, with the risk of getting stuck. I’ll give some more time to think and then need to make some decision!