The Morphing Shawl

I started this shawl with the full intent of following the pattern and having a gorgeous piece of lace knitting done in plenty of time for gift giving. It's funny how our brains work.

The pattern? Lovely! The yarn? So scrumptious! The following of the pattern? Not a chance.



Perhaps I would have had fewer problems had I used the suggested weight for this but you know how it goes. Instead I used a lace yarn, something much thinner than suggested. I quickly realized that I'd have to change the needle size too because that solid portion was looking mighty lacy already and I was only about 5 rows in. Then I realized that I'd be better off if I could make the solid portion much larger but I still needed to hit the required number of stitches before getting to the lace sections. So I changed my increases.

After getting through the charted out lace, all 3 charts of it I realized it still was going to be way too small. Time to poke at the charts again. I figured I'd be okay if I kept doing the lace (and extrapolating what the edges should be like since it didn't quite line up as before) until I'd doubled the lace section before doing the edging.

Still not large enough but by then time was growing short and I was sick of the lace portion. I poked at the charts a bit more. There was a solid portion between the last lace section and the edging. I could simply make that quite a bit larger to match the stitches needed for the edging and it'd look intentional. So back to the calculator (I normally call him Husband) and I had my next goal. I flew through that and began the edging. Once more I had to somewhat make up what happened at the edges as it didn't line up exactly perfectly but I kept the pattern extending outward.

Then it was time to take a really deep breath and block it. If it all fell apart now I had only 2 days to find a replacement gift. I strongly considered pictures of the attempted shawl and a promise to remake it if it did disintegrate in the blocking process. It wouldn't have been a great solution but I had nothing left in the brain reserves at this point.

Luckily it blocked out beautifully and the recipient loved it. Good thing Miss Kid is always glad to help out on showing off the pretties that her step mother makes  so it can be photographed, I couldn't ask for a better model. And look! The little points stayed pointy and OMG it's awesome! *squee*



Pattern: Lingonberry Shawlette by Andrea Arbour
Yarn: Knit Picks Shimmer in Bayou
Project Page: Ravelry