11-22-2015

I am cast on and ready to go. I’m nearly finished with the first four rows. At 445 sts per, they take a while and I am literally stealing minutes to work on it.
My variations:

• Using size 6(4mm) needles.
• Used flexible long-tail cast on instead of knitted cast on (and used a size 3(3.25mm) for bottom needle).
• Rewrote written instructions and changed repeats so written and chart instructions would be for the same stitches and allow me to place markers.**
• Using lace weight yarn.
• I’m using k2tog-b/tbl because it is faster and I get no visibly different result (although this may be me).

My happiness is a little low because I had to start over because of the way the stitch pattern is done. I do not think this is the designer’s fault, although I will be blogging about this!

12-02-2015

I am nearly finished. I have 3 rows left and then the I-cord bind off along the top edge. Nearly out of yarn, yesterday I unwound a very large swatch I had to use for the I-cord.

Changes I’ve made:

• Ignored the stitch chart for the lace and just worked the pattern as it presented itself.
• Put a transition from the lace edge to the body: added 2 rows of garter, 2 rows of St st, then worked bobbles above each YO segment, followed by 1 purl row, then 2 rows of garter.
• Worked the body in seed stitch
• To keep in pattern I worked the decreases as needed for pattern, but did the short rows as directed (you had to be there!)

12-03-2015

I stopped last night with just a dozen or so stitches to work on my i-cord bind off.

Finished it this morning and couldn’t wait to take photos. I have 6 ends to work in because I ran out of yarn on my ball 2 rows shy of the body (I hadn’t noticed that I needed to do 2 garter rows. So I joined yarn salvaged from a swatch and finished the body, then worked the remaining rows, then the I-cord bind off.

It has been measured pre-blocking:
78” wingspan along BO.
11” deep at center
4.5” of lace
6” deep at ends

It is currently soaking in a bath of warm water and Eucalan and a towel is waiting so I can lay it out on the ironing board.
Finished photos tomorrow or over the weekend.

I haven’t decided what dress I’ll wear with this, but I’m leaning toward the forest green wool jersey. I have a fabulous pin that Mitch gave me last Christmas that I’ll probably wear as well. I might wear my number shoes just for fun.

12-04-2015

Final steam blocking makes it perfect.

I want to note again that I did not do the shawl as Mindy wrote the pattern. Her lace is prettier, but I got hung up on it and just wanted to get it made, so I fudged. Then I don’t like stockinette where it is going to roll, so I did seed stitch. This caused me to have to do the decreases/short rows slightly differently, but I think I got a similar result.

If you look at the final blocked photos, you will notice that I smashed the bobbles flat--on purpose.

Here are the final blocked measurements:
78” Wingspan along BO
12+“ deep at center
6” of lace (to points)
7” deep at ends (without point)