Fastest shawl I've ever knit. I cast on Saturday, by Sunday night I was done!
I loved this skein of yarn. I loved it so much that I thought I'd just wind it into a cake and take some photos of it.
Once I had it wound into a cake and I had snapped a few photos, I decided that I might as well just go ahead and see how it would knit up.
I took a couple of my favorite shawl construction elements and then just went at it! I wanted something quick and simple, I only had 327yds of handspun and wanted to use up every last yard of it. I didn't want to knit a lace pattern that was too fancy because I thought that the bold colour shifts would take away from any intricate patterning. So I simply alternated between plain stockinette portions, garter stitch rows and eyelet rows.
When I was running out of yarn I worked a simple graphic border. I didn't want it to just end... I love a little bit of a scalloped edge and pointy tips on my shawls.
I didn't let the shawl dry completely before I pulled it off of the blocking board (or "blocking bed" in my case) I was too excited to try it on! Plus, Stella was giving me the evil eye, she was tired of being stuck in the corner of her own day bed!
So please excuse the fluttery edges, I'll have to re-block it someday... if I ever stop wearing it.
One of the things that I'm quite happy about is the way that the colour repeats flowed. I was a little worried that as the shawl grew and I had more stitches on my needles and as the colour repeats got shorter that I wouldn't like the look of it. I don't particularly like the look of triangular shawls that are knit with yarns that have long colour repeats, you get big clear blocks of colour at the beginning and then short, stripy bits at the edge, it just doesn't flow for me.
The reason that I think the colours work well in this particular case is because of the blue-purple portions. It wasn't something that I was clever enough to plan, but I'm so happy that they are there to anchor the rest of the rainbowy colourful madness.
The blue portion even fell perfectly on the cast-off.
This shawl just makes me happy. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that I would love it even if it turned out horribly, I'm still a new spinner and am always amazed that I can actually make yarn, so to make a shawl out of yarn that I made is enough to put me over the moon! Add to that the fact that it is so soft, light, squishy and huggable and I've found my new favorite casual shawl.
