I bought all these skeins at the Discontinuedyarns.com booth, as noted in the yarn sections in this project, and in my stash for those same yarns (check the notes in those yarns). I got them with the thought of holding the Phoenix Prints double with the Silkhair Dégradé, and seeing how they’d look in a shawl. I used the roughtly 400 yards (4x100 for the Phoenix, Silkhair more like 440yds) I expected to get to narrow down shawl patterns on Ravelry, and just kept coming back to this one, which I noted was also first in popular, and in “hot right now,” for my chosen filters.

I was worried I might not have enough yarn for the Reyna, though, and I was right. The pattern calls for 400 yards of fingering weight on size 4 needles. I’d hoped 400 yards of ~dk weight on the specified size 7 needles—holding a strand of very find mohair double—would work out the same. I’m not sure it didn’t; the Phoenix Print does say “+/- 100yds,” and may have been a bit shy per ball. The Silkhair was 400m, which is just over 437yds, and there’s a good bit left, maybe even more than 37 yards, so who knows? I was playing it tight with 400yds for a 400yds pattern in a different weight and needle, and I got caught

The pattern alternates between 2 2-row repeating patterns—a garter pattern, and a mesh pattern—and calls for a final section of the mesh pattern from rows 105-136, but states you can skip to the final, 3-row garter section + bind off after an even row if you’re running low on yarn. I did that. I stopped the final mesh section after row 118, 18 whole rows (9 2-row mesh repeats) shy of the end. Then, for rows 137-139—the final 3-row section of garter, before row 140, the bind off row—I weighed the last bit of the 4th ball of phoenix print—14g—knit rows 137 and 138, weighed the remaining yarn again—7g—and, because the rows were still growing, I knew I didn’t have enough for the final garter row and the bind off row, especially as the bind off was a bit of a stretchy one that most likely used more yarn than a regular row, so I skipped row 139, and just did the bind off row 140.

I’m glad I did! I had only about 2-3ft of yarn remaining at the end! I was playing chicken, sweating it the whole bind off row, but I made it. The bind off described does face a certain way, so technically it wrongly faces the back of the shawl now, and there is a back, because the lace sections are alternating yo/k2tog rows and p all rows, and look better from the yo/k2tog side. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Another mistake I made was forgetting which ball I’d started with. These Phoenix Prints have been nothing but confusing! I bought what I thought were 4 different color balls, but it turned out they changed colors, and had enough of one color on the outside that they each looked mostly a different color. Entering them on Ravelry, I realized I’d bought 2 in one color/matching dye lot, and 2 in another color/matching dye lot. They were ostensibly 2 in the gray colors, and 2 in the brown. However, the light brown skein I started with emitted gray from the center pull, and I was too busy reading directions to notice, at least in terms of which ball to use when.

I’d intended to do brown, gray, brown, gray, using up a full ball before switching, but, while things had been fresh in my mind back when switching from ball 1—brown—to ball 2—gray—I’d forgotten where I was while switching to ball 3, saw all that gray at the beginning of the shawl (from the center of one of the “brown” balls), misremembered, thinking I’d started with a gray ball, and chose gray for ball 3, thinking I was switching back to gray. So, instead of using the balls in a brown, gray, brown, gray order, I ended up using them in a brown, gray, gray, brown order. The colors were nebulous enough that this mix-up was a possibility. It worked out, though, I think, because the way the colors changed, I ended up with 2 wide bands of gray, similar in width, and two thin, lighter, brown bands, also similar, so it kind of looks intentional. I wish I understood the color changes better. I knit with 4 balls of this stuff, and how it changes colors is still a total mystery to me, especially now that it’s occluded a bit behind the also-color-changing and held-double silkhair, which slowly went through blush, tan, and natural colors.

The shawl is not that large, but it is a bit heavy. It feels like a cozy blanket more than a lightweight wrap.

I saw my aunt Sandy at my dad’s 3rd wedding in July, 2019, and showed her the shawl on my phone, asking if she’d like to have it. She’s very sweet, and nostalgic, and loves our family, so she was very happy to have something lovingly crafted by one of us. I remembered to bring it with me to dad’s over the Christmas, 2019, holiday, and wrapped it up for her, finally handing it over at our yearly holiday party.