01-19-2017

Cast on January 17th. The introduction to this pattern was terrifying. It appeared to be extremely complicated, and I thought for sure I made a grave error buying yarn for it.

The first attempt at it failed miserably. At 12 rows in I took one look and knew things were wrong - there was no design no pattern just a jumble of stitches. Frogged and regrouped. My error? I interpreted the instructions for the WS rows completely backwards. The instructions are “knit the knits and purl the purls and yarn overs”. That’s pretty standard for WS rows, but somehow I managed to think I needed to remember what I did on the RS row and replicate it - so I basically purled the knits and knit the purls. D’oh! Second attempt done correctly by reading the knitting and following the directions appropriately and ta-da!

Finished charts A and B which are knit at the same time. The instructions are clear, the charts are well done, but between the jumping from one chart to the other and the cabling process, I had my hands full keeping track of the pattern and where I was. Thank goodness for Knit Companion!

Halfway through chart C now, and almost to the owls! :)

01-23-2017

Knit through row 72 and managed to drop two stitches. They went pretty deep, tried to bring them back up the ladder, but of course it was right in line with increases and decreases, so the fix looked messy and was extremely obvious.

Tinked back 10 rows (which took a million times longer than it took to knit them) and started over from a clean row. Back up through row 79 which is all of chart C and into chart D. Owl eyes go in on row 83 for perspective. Still on my first skein of yarn, so I guess I’ll have plenty available.

01-25-2017

Up through row 108 of chart D. Wanted to finish it (row 112) but I’ve had to tink enough with this project so I quit while I was ahead.

Placed beads for eyes on row 83, stitch 7 and 12. Did the eyes with a gorgeous hematite bead, then discovered that dark grey on grey didn’t stand out they way I wanted. Tinked back and redid it with gold metallic beads that I had leftover from a sock project (Zoltoy). Much better with these beads - they don’t match at all, and instinctively I thought they would clash, but in the project they do exactly what owl eyes would do - shine and glimmer in the light. Since there are only 26 beads and they are the only embellishments on the shawl, the gold is perfect.

Tied in the second skein on row 93, it feels like I’m going to have a ton of yarn left over, but I still have the smocking set up, smocking, and then the last section to go. So I’ll probably run short of yarn if my typical luck holds true.

01-27-2017

Finished chart D, the smocking set up and the smocking. One row left of the transition to feather and fan and then the last segment. Still on the second skein but it’s towards the end. I suppose I’ll just run the last segment until I run out of yarn.

02-05-2017

Tied in the 3rd skein on row 4 of the first repeat of the feathered edge. Through row 11 of the second repeat now. Originally thought I would do the extra two repeats listed as optional, but with 13 more rows to go for this repeat, I don’t think I will have nearly enough yarn. So apparently this section eats yarn!

No issues with the pattern, the instructions or the charts - everything lines up as stated and works beautifully. No need for stitch markers either as the design had clear transitions throughout each section that are easy to read and make sure you stay aligned.

02-07-2017

Finished the second repeat of the feathered edge chart. Definitely not enough yarn for another repeat, in fact I’m almost certain I’ll be playing chicken at the end of this project.

Through row 3 of the feathered tip chart. only 6 more rows and the BO to go!

02-09-2017

Off the needles! Finished with 12g of yarn left, so definitely no room for extra repeats. The crochet bind off did not have much by way of directions, and the project notes I read through were not as helpful as I would have liked given that I have never done one before. So off to Google I went.

Found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPc1S4GXXSI

It was the closest match to what the chart called for. The knit 3 together and chain 5 aspect was well explained by the video, and then I just guessed the rest. The other stitches which were variations of slip, knit, pass the slipped stich over, I treated as I would if I were knitting, just used the hook to move the stiches around.

In total it only took about 75 minutes to do the full bind off, so it was actually pretty fast, and looks nice too. I had a bit of trouble keeping track of where I was, making the chain each time threw my memory off, but the 5 stitch decrease was centered over the braided cable stitches so I had a point of reference to back track to and to keep me in line every 15 stitches. It worked perfectly.

All in all this was a pleasant knit with a lovely outcome and I can’t wait to see it blocked to it’s full potential.

03-05-2017

Blocking! It’s big! I love the way the lace edging blocked out, and can’t wait to see it unpinned and ready to wear. It was a bit of a struggle to block the owls just right - balancing the length with the width took some time, but I think it’s there. And the gold beads for the eyes stand out nicely now. A couple of days to dry and then pictures!

09-01-2017

Best In Show in the 2017 Hunterdon, NJ county fair!! Woo hoo!