The New Prayer Shawl Companion

Look what just arrived in the mail:

 Woohoo! It's Taunton's latest addition to their Prayer Shawl Companion books, The New Prayer Shawl Companion.

My design, the Good Luck Horseshoe Shawl, is on page 115.

Long-time blog readers may remember that shawl, which was a KAL here. Here I'm modeling the same shawl.

There are some really beautiful shawl patterns in this new book, geared to knitters of all levels. And as always with Taunton, the photos and presentation are gorgeous. The proceeds from this book go to the Prayer Shawl Ministry, which is a very good cause. I'm proud to have been part of all three of the Prayer Shawl books.

Voila! Horseshoe Lace Shawl (KAL)

I finished the Horseshoe Lace Shawl (from the informal KAL), soaked it and pinned it to my living room rug. Soaking not only allowed the yarn to bloom, it removed the oily/chemical smell from the yarn, which was a relief. As always, blocking is a slow and tedious process. But I finished measuring, and stretching, and pinning, and complaining. And then I stood up to admire my handiwork...

And then I had a heart attack.

YIKES! After a moment of panic (and maybe a tear or two, and some rent clothing, and a gnash of the teeth), I soaked a length of the yarn (so it would bloom, and match the rest of the shawl), and threaded it in a needle, and I went to work, embroidering the lace back together right there, pinned out on the floor.

Can you see it? Me neither. I call that a success.

A roaring success.

An amazingly quick-to-knit success.

A light, lacy and beautiful success.

A 72" x 36", stretched to the absolute limit (if you want to block it a little less severely, knit a couple more repeats before binding off) success.

My first original triangle shawl pattern success!


So, how are your shawls coming along?

Off the Needles

As with every large project, no matter how quickly and easily the bulk of the knitting goes, the last inch or so is a always killer. I had 6 rows and the Bind Off left, and it took me all last evening to do it. But the Horseshoe Triangle Shawl KAL is off the needles!

In its present form (unwashed, unstretched, unblocked), the shawl is 52" wide, and 29" long. It took 7.2 ozs of yarn, on size 8 needles. I finished with 21 lace repeats, and a total of 233 sts.

Speaking of this yarn, which I bought a couple of years ago at NCFF- it's a heavy fingering weight (I suspect it'll bloom to sport weight) and I don't think I've mentioned that it has a fairly strong oil/grease scent that I hope will wash out (it's soaking in hot water right now). The handwritten label says that it's merino/nylon and that the cone weighed 18.8 ozs. However, the shawl used 7.2 ozs, and the remainder clocks in at 5.5 ozs with the cone-so it wasn't anywhere near 18 ozs! Since the cone weighs at least a couple of ozs, minimum, it was probably only had 10 ozs of yarn to begin with. The yarn was commercially spun in a small mill, which probably should recalibrate their scales (or the label was mistakenly applied, which sounds better to me- I doubt that this yarn has any Merino in it- it's definitely not soft). Still, there was enough yardage to complete the shawl, and probably enough for matching socks, if I'm ever in the mood to knit some.

I'm looking forward to blocking it- well not to the actual blocking, which is tedious. But I'm looking forward to seeing the shawl all pinned and shaped. I think it's going to be gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, here's last night's sunset.

Anyone K-ing AL?

One of the hard things about an informal KAL is that I have no idea if anyone is actually K-ing AL. And given that I took a break from my own version for that little trip, I would not be surprised if everyone has forgotten all about the Horseshoe Lace Triangle Shawl (pattern in the above link).

I haven't forgotten though. I'm making very good progress on it, in fact. I have 19 repeats on the needles, and I'm finding that it's a nicely meditative project. The lace repeat is easy enough that I can watch TV as I knit. I think it's going to be a lovely shawl, and the edges will block into well defined scallops, which will eliminate the need to pick up and knit a decorative border around it.

I'm not sure how much bigger to make it (the pattern adds 2 repeats in every 16 rows). It'll block out a lot bigger than it looks right now, and I can easily stretch the triangle point to 36" from the needle, and a rough calculation (6" stretched for 2 repeats) makes it a good 60" wide when I finish this repeat. I think I'll add at least one or two more repeats (which will take me a few nights- we're at the stage where rows take awhile now). But after that, it should be done.

I'm very curious to find out how much yarn this shawl needs- I have some handspun that would really look pretty in this pattern, but I don't know if I have enough. I'm thinking beads along the scalloped edges...

Oh, I almost forgot:

I finished the Horseshoe Lace Socks before I left for NC.

All Horseshoe, All The Time

The Horseshoe (side note: I type Horshoe every. single. time. and then I have to correct) socks have been relegated to the Car Project, and since I'm not in a car very much lately (except when I'm driving, and I haven't mastered the whole Knit While I Drive thing yet), I haven't made much progress.

I'd kind of like to wear these to SAFF, and in my normal world, I could finish the foot of a sock (even a lace sock) in an evening. But I've been distracted and busy lately, so I can't guarantee that I'll get these done before Tuesday.

I'm using hand-dyed yarn, which is notoriously variable, but I still didn't expect this much difference between the tone of one half of the skein and the other- note how green the finished sock is, and how purple the one in progress. Interesting.

And what, you may ask, is this Distraction? Well other than working on my YA, and getting ready for SAFF (I still have a little bit of class example knitting to do), this has done the trick:

The KAL Triangle Shawl (btw: welcome all who are K-ingAL! Lots of new people tuning in- I hope you stick around for the rest of the blather. And possible prizes...) is distraction heaven. It's coming along very well, though this is the *quick section*- with every 16 rows, we add 20 sts total, so pretty soon, rows are going to take quite a bit longer to finish. The lace pattern looks every bit as pretty in this version as it did in the hats and the socks.

It's a very simple lace pattern, which will show up nicely after blocking (and it would show up better now if I wasn't using such dark yarn). I love how the edges are going to scallop- it's going to be very pretty.

Have any of you cast on? If so, send me a pic and I'll post it.

Wanna KAL?

Oh, don't act so surprised. Like you didn't know that I was going to start knitting a Triangle Horseshoe Lace Shawl. The only mystery was whether it would be bottom up, or top down. And when I'd finally give in.

At least I finished writing a chapter of my YA first. And I got past the heel on the Horseshoe Lace sock before I bowed to the inevitable, which is when I learned that the definition of inevitable includes: really tricky.

It's hard to adapt an asymmetrical motif written for knitting in the round, to a flat project that needs to be vertically symmetrical. With edge motifs. And 10 increases worked as evenly as possible into 16 rows, but only on the right side (of the fabric, not the shawl. There are an even number of increases on either side of the shawl)(duh). It took awhile, and a bit of brain wrinkling, but I got it worked out.

I've already added 2 Horseshoe Lace Motifs (2 new repeats are added every 16 rows after the bottom point), and so far, it's working out well. This yarn is natural colored millspun (commercially spun from a small farm) merino/nylon. It's highly processed and looks to be heavy fingering weight, but my guess is that it'll bloom to at least sportweight after washing and blocking. I'm knitting it on Size 8 needles. I don't know if it'll need/want an edge lace or not- the edges are pretty lacy already and the filler-motifs on the edge (for the increases) are lacy too, and they'll be sorta scallopy from the double increases. I'll wait until the triangle is done to decide.

I have no idea how much yarn this shawl is going to take, or how big it'll be. I have over a pound of this yarn, so I can knit until I am so sick of it that I run screaming into the night.

Want to live dangerously and knit a shawl along with me? From a totally untested pattern? Choose whatever size yarn you want, and whatever needles feel right and join the fun.

Click on the jpg to enlarge, right click to save. Print from any graphics program.

No signup. No deadline. No Pressure. Join in if you like, and send me progress pics if you can.

And for those who'd rather work from written instructions, here they are:

click on image to enlarge, right click to save, print from any graphics program.
And just in case (here is where mistakes sometimes creep in, so if you find any, please let me know and I'll make corrections)
:
Horseshoe Lace Triangle Shawl Written Instructions
Chart A:
Row 1: P
Row 2: K1, YO, K1, YO, K1
Row 3: P
Row 4: K1, YO, K3, YO, K1
Row 5: P
Row 6: K1, YO, K1, YO, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, YO, K1, YO, K1
Row 7: P
Row 8: K1, YO, K2, YO, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, YO, K2, YO, K1
Row 9: P
Row 10: K1, YO, K3, YO, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, YO, K3, YO, K1

Chart B (working all 3 portions):

Row 1: P
Row 2: K1, YO, K1, place marker, (the next 10 sts are the center Horseshoe motif), YO, K3, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, K3, YO, K1, place marker, YO, K1
Row 3: P
Row 4: K1, YO, K1, YO, P1, move marker, K1, YO, K2, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, K2, YO, K1, P1, move marker, YO, K1, YO, K1
Row 5: P4, move marker, K1, P9, move marker K1, P4
Row 6: K1, YO, K2tog TBL, YO, K1, P1, move marker, K2, YO, K1, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, K1, YO, K2, P1, move marker K1, YO, K2 tog, YO, K1
Row 7: P5, move marker, K1, P9, move marker, K1, P5
Row 8: K1, YO, K1, YO, K2 tog TBL, YO, K1, P1, move marker, K3, YO, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, YO, K3, P1, move marker, K1, YO, K2 tog, YO, K1, YO, K1
Row 9: P
Row 10: K1, YO, K2, K2 tog TBL,YO, K3, move marker, YO, K3, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, K3, YO, K1, move marker, K2, YO, K2 tog, K2, YO, K1
Row 11: P
Row 12: K1, YO, K1, YO, K2, K2 tog TBL, YO, K2, P1, move marker, K1, YO, K2, SL 1, K2 tog, PSSO, K2, YO, K1, P1, move marker, K2, YO, K2 tog, K2, YO, K1, YO, K1
Row 13: P10, move marker, K1, P9, move marker, K1, P10
Row 14: K1, YO, K3, K2togTBL, YO, K4, P1, move marker, K2, YO, K1, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, K1, YO, K2, P1, move marker, K4, YO, K2tog, K3, YO, K1
Row 15: P 11, move marker, K1, P9, move marker K1, P 11
Row 16: K5, K2togTBL, YO, K4, P1, move marker, K3, YO, SL1, K2 tog, PSSO, YO, K3, P1, move marker, K4, YO, K2tog, K5

After each set of 16 rows in Chart B, there will be 2 more 10 st Center Horseshoe Lace Repeats per row. Repeat that 10 st motif as many times as needed in each row.