Sept. 2, 2012 - I have been wanting to do this shawl ever since I first saw the pattern. For a while, I just couldn’t justify it because I don’t really see myself wearing shawls. However, this year I really want to get a peacoat for my winter coat, and wear shawls and scarves draped over it.

I’m doing this along with Tartdarling as my knitting buddy. I’m really excited to have someone as a knitting buddy on a project! I know I’ll have lots of questions for her!

So an explanation on the name of my project: I like budgies (parakeets), but in my vocabulary, “budgie” has taken on a meaning of its own to mean anything cute and flappy and bird-like. This led to MY nickname to become “Budgie.”

Pink, particularly soft pink, is my favorite color…if you couldn’t tell from my project page. I especially like it when it’s a slightly peachy, golden, or just warm shade of soft pink (as opposed to having cool or blue undertones). Again, vocabulary giving words meanings of their own, and warm, soft pinks are known to my friends and me as “Budgie Pink.” The Queen Anne colorway fits the description PERFECTLY, and has been a colorway I have adored and wanted to make something out of since I first saw it.

ANYWAY! About the shawl itself!

I’m using Knit Picks Shadow Tonal Lace yarn. I considered doing it in fingering weight, but I want it bigger and lighter so it can be a year-round shawl.

I have some beads, but am still deciding if I want to go with them or something else. On hand I have aurora borealis beads in a golden rose. They’re gorgeous and match perfectly, but that’s also a problem--they match so perfectly that they’re likely to get “lost” in the yarn. I also have some metallic-finish beads in a golden copper color. Also very pretty and go very well, but I’m afraid they might end up looking “cheap” or “fake.” What I’d really like is a foil-lined soft copper or rosy-gold. I saw some at the crafts store, but they only had one tube. That wouldn’t be enough, and I don’t want to get one tube and never find more ever again…which is my luck.

As for the shawl itself, I just cast on today. It’s my first ever shawl. I plan to add some more repeats…I think 2? I also began with slipping the first stitch of each row, but my tension is a ~little~ tight, so within the first 20 rows I’ve switched to knitting the first stitch.

I can’t purl Continental AND maintain tension to save my life, and knitting Continental with lace-weight yarn is driving me batty, so back to English style for this shawl. I’ll practice my Continental on my next project, whatever that ends up being.

Overall I’m excited for my first Haruni! Hopefully I can zip through it!

October 17, 2012 - I haven’t written much because I haven’t had much to say.

The first 4 repeats went by REALLY fast. Then I got halfway through the 5th repeat (row 9, I think) and realized I made a mistake somewhere 2 rows back. And since that was a row with the slip-2-knit-1-pass-slipped-stitches-over and I realized my mistake was somewhere in that stitch so it affected the rest of the row, I had to frog about 2 whole rows (2 half rows and 1 full row) to find and fix it.

This normally wouldn’t be a problem, except doing it in lace yarn? I hated life and set aside my knitting for a while. I dropped stitches and twisted stitches so many times it wasn’t funny.

In the meantime, the WoW expansion (MoP) came out, so I was wrapped up in that for a bit.

BUT BACK TO KNITTING!

I just got a new job, so the past week I haven’t wanted to spend my evenings in front of the computer. That will change as I adjust to working again. But for now, knitting has been a good way to get away from squinting at my monitor and squint at lace yarn instead.

So anyway, I just finished Repeat #7, and I am just running out of yarn in my first skein. I want a really big shawl, so I’m going to do one more repeat (also because 8 is my “lucky” number) which will finish off this skein and take me into the second skein. Then I will begin Chart B. From what I’ve read, it will take about the same amount of yarn for Chart B as it does for Chart A, but that’s fine. I actually have 2 more skeins in the same dye lot, so I don’t mind using half of one if I need to.

December 30, 2012 - FINISHED! Just took it off the blocking wires today!

I decided against beading it, so if you saw this before with its original title you may be confused. I just wanted to keep going with it, and didn’t want to do a bead hunt.

But it’s beautiful enough on its own!

I pushed through the last SEVEN rows (AND bind-off!) two days ago, and basically started knitting around 1 pm and finished just before midnight. Each row at that point took 45 minutes to an hour.

Despite the advice in the instructions, I went with a single thread crochet bind-off. I first tried i-cord, but it was just way too thick. I used a 2.25 crochet hook, I think…may have been 2.5.

It took less than 2 skeins of yarn. The first skein got me midway through Repeat 7 of the first chart, and I read that it took the same amount of yarn for Chart B as it does Chart A. So I expected to break into one of my other two skeins…turns out I didn’t need to. But I also think if I did i-cord it would have been significantly less yarn left over. (I’ll try to get a weight of what I have left for more accurate description of how much it took.)

Blocked, it came out to 58”x30”. I was hoping for a 65” wingspan, but it was my first time blocking. I wanted it to be BIG so I can wear it stylishly OVER a black winter peacoat, and light enough that I can wear it in the summer over a sleeveless top or dress and cover more than just my shoulders.

It is definitely a success!