I absolutely adored the look of this pattern and bought it as soon as I could! :) I was very lucky to get it at the special discounted price when it was first released - thanks for the lovely enabling, Mia!

Very excited as I will finally be trying out some of the gorgeous wool by our wonderful local SA dyer Hartlam - a stunningly vibrant colourway perfectly named ‘Naartjie’ (our word for a tangerine/satsuma - at least according to Wikipedia!). I squealed out loud in the Post Office when I collected the wool - it’s sublime!

I’m replacing the nupps with some beautiful glass citrine-coloured beads (no indication of size unfortunately). Beads were attached using a 0.60mm crochet hook. I used a total of 100 beads (of course, if you’re making the larger version, you’ll need more!).

I was so desperate to start this shawl, tempted by the stunning wool-and-beads combination, that I cast on as soon as the tedious Christmas knitting/presents were unwrapped on Christmas morning :) This is an infinitely more enjoyable knit than all of that!

Because I’m something of a shawl-chart-reading newbie, I’m noting here that the odd-numbered rows, read right-to-left, are right-side rows. A really useful article from Knitting Daily ultimately helped me get my bearings on the first chart :) Happily, the Calvinia stood up well to my restarts!

Set-up chart completed 25 December

Polyps chart completed 27 December (no knitting done on Boxing Day)

First working of Microatolls chart completed 29 December (no knitting done on the 28th)

Third and final Microatolls repeat completed 31 December. Starting to worry that I’ll run out of wool! Eep!

First half of Great Knitted Reef chart completed 1 January 2013. I had exactly enough beads - thank goodness! Now really hoping that I’ll have enough wool to finish!

2 January 2013 - binding off! I did have enough wool after all! :D
Aaaaand…it’s done! I’m in love with this - it turned out even better than I’d hoped for! Wonderful pattern, gorgeous yarn, stunning beads = ♥love♥! I am officially a convert to shawls! And, after all my fretting, I still have a fair bit of the lovely Naartjie Calvinia Sock left! :D ETA: according to my mom’s kitchen scale, I actually have a whopping 25 grams left!! Not sure how that happened…but I’m not complaining!

Some final thoughts on the pattern: it’s really well written, easy to follow and also easily memorised. The cables elevate this from a mindless knit to an enjoyable and relaxing, but not challenging, knitting experience. I highly recommend it, especially to those who, like me, are new to knitting shawls!