WIP Wednesday: Shawls Galore

I totally blew out Monday's blogpost - for some reason it slipped my mind entirely until it was way too late to actually do anything about it; and today I am struggling with a treacle-slow connection ... so we'll cross our fingers and hope for the best ...

Faithful readers, you'll remember the post where I asked for help deciding what to do with a WIP. I just went through all the comments again, and - by a tiny smidge - the vote was in favor of frogging. Lucky, really, because that's what I did. Actually, I coerced Mini Diva into frogging and rewinding for me. And how she loved it. Not.

I was immediately faced with another dilemma - moral, this time. The perfect pattern for this yarn, I am convinced is the Waves of Leaves shawl, which I have made before using perfect Malabrigo Lace. I've just searched, but apparently I didn't blog about the hassles I had with this pattern: the errors in the written pattern, which forced me to learn how to read a chart; and the poor charts, which need quite a bit of thought and/or explanation.

The moral dilemma was whether to use this pattern again, in spite of it being written so badly; yes, it's free, but I don't really see that as an excuse for inflicting mistakes on the unsuspecting knitter. I have started it, as you can see, but if anyone has any suggestions for a shawl pattern which will suit this silk yarn, I'm all ears .... I haven't got far, so can frog again easily enough.



The other WIP this week is the Candleflame shawl - I've had the yarn for ages (another beauty from Laura at Abstract Cat: BFL laceweight, colorway 'Fire Festival'); and after my saga of the beads, which I eventually obtained quickly and without any fuss from the lovely people at Highly Strung Beads, my first project with beads too. I think it is a perfect match of yarn to project. Or project to yarn. I usually find the yarn first, then the project follows ...



And - of course - there are oodles of other yummy blogs to read over at Tami's Amis .....

Green Doesn't Grow the Patio-Oh

And it's a hat trick ! Here we are on WIP Wednesday 38 - and you can find loads of mainly yarny goodness on this theme over at Tami's Amis.

My post is not so much on the yarny but a yardy theme instead: we used the fabulous unseasonal hot sunny weather over the weekend to wake the garden up from it's winter sleep and spring mess. Like a grizzly bear, it was somewhat grumpy and unyielding, but we had our way with it in the end. All we have to do now is hope there are no late frosts ......








































































And this is the progress on the Waves of Leaves shawl: I finished the last repeat as per the pattern, but decided the shawl wasn't big enough - the pattern is written for 4ply/fingering. So I'm on row 12 of the next 24 row repeat ..... That odd black spot is Inky sticking his nose in to see what's going on.

WIP Wednesday 37: 1st Shawl

Wow, a consecutive WIP Wednesday post ! Having received the lovely laceweight Malabrigo in the colorway 'Jewel' from Susie over at Useless Beauty, I had to instantly find something to make with it.

Searching through Ravelry, I found this free pattern for a shawl: Waves of Leaves. It is written for 4ply yarn, but I really think it will suit the yarn color, so I am knitting it on 3.75mm needles:































The first photo is taken with flash, the second without.

One of the attractions of this pattern was that it had written instructions as well as the ubiquitous charts. However. There is no point giving written instructions when there are not only errors, but they are not clear. Hence two ripping backs to the start - one when I was well into the second set of instructions for the main body.

So I learned to read the charts. These too are oddly set out, which took me a moment or three to understand/visualize the overall picture they were supposed to be showing me. As it happens, this too was not quite as it should be - it ws only while browsing the completed shawls of others on Ravelry that the photos illuminated my darkness, and I now understand exactly what my goal is.

If I didn't think the pattern was the perfect match for the yarn, I would have ripped it back and made something else, in protest. The yarn itself is lovely - very soft, with the slightest of halos; it knits up easily.