5/12/09: Just finished knitting the shawl and still have to block it.

The pattern of the middle panel is a bit tedious--I didn’t find it easy to memorize. I actually don’t think I memorized it at all. There is patterning on both right and wrong sides, so it’s not a super easy lace pattern. Meaning, I had to keep the chart in front of me rather than being able to set the chart aside after several repeats. The middle panel seemed to take FOREVER to finish. I’m not sure why.

The border pattern is a lot easier because you slip, knit, and then purl the rest of the row on every wrong side, and it’s a simple 8 row repeat.

I used the needle size specified in the pattern, but instead of Super Fine weight (1) yarn as specified in the pattern, I used lace weight (0). The pattern said 950 yards of weight 1 yarn, but I ended up using 1100 yards of weight 0 yarn. I’m not sure if I’d really have used only 950 yards of weight 1 yarn.

I am going to try to block this to the pattern specified measurements of 21” x 76”. We’ll see how that turns out. I’m not quite sure how to pin the border since there are no obvious points. I guess I’ll just wing it.

6/9/09: I finally blocked this, but it ended up being 22” x 89”. The border was too compacted on the short sides. I tried blocking the shawl wider, but the middle portion was stretched too much (this was when I was trying to adhere to the 21” x 76” size printed) so I gave up. So the short side border doesn’t look quite the same as the long side border. I then ended up pulling the middle portion longer to open up the stitches.

I will probably give this shawl away, because it ended up being too long for me (I’m only 5’2” and the shawl is 7.5 feet long).