The obligatory ass shot:
I'm so freakin' excited over this. I tried to get this done in time for Lacevember but I missed the deadline by 2 days. I blame Karen for that. I was lead to believe that Lacevember was actually 2 months long and thus I felt free to slack and concentrate on Christmas gift knitting. Silly me. Ah well. It's alright. So I don't win a prize but I do have a mistake free gorgeous shawl!
Here it is pre-blocking:
Forgive the busy towels under it. My white towels are for my own personal use. Not for my knitting thankyouverymuch.
For the blocking, I went to the hardware store looking for some welding wire or at least some stainless steel type of rod. Screw that. Those suckers were $7 each. So the frugal side of me opted for the under $3 solution. Bezzie would be proud.
Dowel rods. They worked perfectly fine for my purposes. As you see, this sucker grew a lot by blocking. I'd always heard of the magic of blocking lace but to see it for myself, simply amazing.
Details:
Pattern: Swallowtail Lace Shawl from Fall '06 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool it's a dark navy blue I don't have the color number. It took just over 2 hanks.
Needles: US 8
Started: October 12th
Finished: December 2nd.
It would have been a much faster knit but it was my first lace shawl and I didn't want to screw it up so I took my time and only worked on it on Sundays for the most part. Except for this last week. I was freaking out trying to get it done so I brought it to my knitting group wednesday night. As Tvini can attest, I had went to the pub before knitting group (The Interlacements! The yarn shop is next door to the pub! Geez, gimme a break people.) and well, in the couple hours I was at the knitting group, I didn't even get through a whole row. I tinked back the same row a total of 3 times. 3 times for the right half of the shawl, and 3 times for the left half. Apparently beer makes it really hard to count. Or something. Heh. Thank God for lifelines. And that's all I have to say about that.
Oh, and as for the nupps - I went with the slip 3 p2tog psso option. Much neater and less aggravating than trying the p5tog or the crochet hook method.
9 comments:
oh beautiful! well done! it came out great :)
I bought some stiff wire from a specialty case at our indepedent hardware store that held several different thin sizes, including tubes. I paid less than $2 for each 3' wire, and something in that neighborhood for the tube to store them in. I used abandoned ball point pen caps to close off the ends of the tubes. Be sure to thoroughly wipe the wires before using them.
P.S. Forgot to say how beautiful your shawl is. It's nice to see one done in a larger size.
Just gorgeous! I finished mine on the same day. Also was thankful for lifelines and had to stay away from wine while knitting! Love the size of your shawl.
Excellent job. And.....I love your hair!
beautiful!
WOW! It is gorgeous! I have just started one in a deep purple - seeing your dramatic dark color - I'm so glad I did!!
I love it, too. Just picking mine back up after a Christmas-knitting haitus. Unfortunately, the sound of tinking will be heard (as well as cursing) as I screwed up a few rows back. Thanks to this blog, I've learned of lifelines and will be eagerly threading them through as I progress.
This is beautiful! Here was I, trying to look on the internet for "blocking rods" and what do I find? - time to go to the hardware store, rather than trying some fancy and expensive solution!
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