Another epic knit

I just finished blocking my latest in what appears to be a series of epic knits. This one is a shawl. Shawls aren't such a big deal, I know. But consider that the pattern is written entirely in German (a language I neither speak or read) and the designer chose to invent his own little system of knitting symbols that weren't even comparable to the symbols of other designers.

Because of this it all seemed very daunting when I first got the pattern and looked at the charts. However help was at hand and I found some very useful bits and pieces around Ravelry that allowed me to understand the symbols and figure out where to start.

With my trusty translation notes in hand, I ordered some beads and started re-charting. The re-charting took me far less time than I thought it would and I had knitted as far as row 39 before bed that same night.

It took me a total of sixteen days (including the inevitable ripping back of half the damn shawl to fix a gradation issue) to complete the knitting part of the shawl (including the beading which slowed me down immensely).

Funnily enough, this is exactly how long it took me to complete my first lace shawl too. Anyhoo, its all finished and blocked and full of beady awesomeness. Here's some pics...

The gradation didn't turn out quite how I had hoped it would.  But this is the first time I've tried to spin a gradated yarn so I'm chalking that up to experience.  I'm still quite happy with how the shawl turned out.  The beading is quite subtle and the yarn is lovely and soft.  The whole things weighs less than 120g and it should be wonderfully warm for winter.

The shrug and the needlecase

Some of you may recall that in my last January post I briefly alluded to a shrug I was knitting for a lady in Victoria.  Well said shrug is finished AND delivered.  I even have photos of the recipient wearing it.  I had quite the adventure knitting it and in the end it turned out rather nicely.  Here...see for yourself...

 

Here are some pics of it after I'd blocked it.  I'd just taken delivery of 100 T-pins that day and this was my first opportunity to actually use them.  They work very well - purchase justified! ;o)

I added beads to the edging of the entire shrug, including the sleeves.  The pattern actually calls for the sleeves to be left without edging but to me this looked un-finished some how so I added the same edging pattern (yes including the beads) to the bottom of the sleeves too.  And I'm glad I did, it looks much better this way imho.

The extra little bit I added to the sleeves

The entire shrug ended up using roughly 300m of yarn and there was almost 700m of yarn left over which, of course, I sent back with the shrug.  I wonder what she'll end up making with it.

The happy recipient

Not forgetting that this whole adventure was part of a swap.  In return for the shrug I received an awesome needle case especially made for my interchangeable needles.  I love it, its totally awesome and its great to have some of my needles actually organised so that I can find them.  Here is a small pic of it and you can see more pics here.

 

Since both customers are happy with their parcels I'd say this was sucessful swap.