Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sparkly Shawl

 This will be a short post -- Christmas is approaching and there are so many gifts to complete!!! -- but I wanted to share, finally, my own shawl design.

The great thing about shawls is that they don't require too much yarn. I had made a rectangle shawl for a friend a few years ago. (I didn't know how to do triangle shawls at the time.) It turned out quite lovely, and I had four skeins remaining, which I thought would be a perfect amount for making my first triangle shawl design. And it was!


The yarn is Australian Merinos Lamé. The color is rosina, kind of a maroon. Each ball is 50 grams, 175 yards. As the lamé might tell you, this yarn has a silver metallic thread running through, so it makes for a dressy shawl.

I have started writing up the pattern, but will have to share it at another time.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy these photos.

Cheers,

Reah Janise


Sunday, November 4, 2012

HURRICANE SARAH SHAWLETTE

Whew! What a storm. But at least the power outage wasn't for as long as it was when the derecho roared through here late June. Five days for that one, 19 hours this time. Still it wasn't a total loss. Under the glow of a battery-powered LED, I finished a shawlette.

I had wanted to try a non-triangular shawlette and found Annis shawl on Ravelry.

I dipped into my Scottish yarn stash. I'd specifically purchased one to be used to make a shawl. This was one of the first two yarns I'd purchased in Edinburgh. It was hand-dyed in the Orkney Islands.
The Annis shawl is a lovely crescent shawl. One of the stitches in this lace pattern is a nupp, which did not work very well when I knit a swatch of the pattern. It could have been because the yarn was too thick and it would have gotten lost in the multi-color of the yarn. Swatches are very useful. When I start any project, I do a swatch. And when I'm going to start a lace project, I practice the lace stitch because lace can easily go wrong.

Lace has also made me a firm believer--and user--of stitch markers. Stitch markers make it much easier to not mess up the lace pattern, which is far too easy, at least for me.

Anyway, the Annis pattern was quite fun to knit up. Triangular shawls begin with three stitches and then keep increasing. This crescent shawl started with the longest row first, the lace pattern. After the lace is completed, you begin short rows, decreasing 1 stitch each row until the last row.

I finished the shawl and then realized it looked like the finished edge would roll. I ripped out the last row and added three additional rows knit in basketweave: k2p2, reversed every other row. The bind-off row followed the same pattern. And then the finished edge did not roll. Yeah!


Have already begun the next shawlette--and this time I'm doing my own pattern.

Reah Janise