Flower Basket Shawl



It's a really simple project and fast to knit too. The lace is charted and based on a 10 row repeat. You can easily make the shawl larger by knitting more repeats. (Just make sure that you do full repeats). The original design used 2 strands of lace weight alpaca. I substituted using some shetland that I had in stash. The orginal yarn would had yielded approx 420m. I also knitted 3 extra repeats as I wasn't getting the width that I needed, no I didn't swatch first, but it's a shawl not a sweater.

Anyway, all said and done, this was a great project (about 10 hour knitting time) and fabulous results.

...the biz .. Pattern Source:
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Interweave Winter 2004/2005
Shetland 2 ply (equivalent to standard 4 ply yarn)
70g
none
4.5 mm
approx 200m/50g
Eltham raid at Nancy Vale studio
Black
approx 52inch wide, 26 inches long
5 Sept 2004
7 Oct 2004
9 Sep - 5 Oct
Secret Pal


I had a really busy September, what with my sister's wedding, jaunting around in DC and Austria..

I finally got myself a copy of Interweave, and went to Sarah Elizabeth's site to sign up for the FlowerBasket Shawl Along, but it was too late. The sign-up was closed.

What the heck, I can still knit-along even if I'm not officially part of the knit-along. So I did just that. Somewhere over the Atlantic on Thursday night, I cast off the last stitch.
.
I started this before I went to NY for my sister's wedding. Although I took it to NY with me, I was too busy to concentrate on anything more complicated than a simple sock. I did my knitting in "stolen" minutes. 5 minutes while waiting on lines or 10 minutes while standing on the subway, so not the ideal environment since I didn't a reasonable stretch of time. I left it in London, when I was in Austria and only picked it back up on a recent trip. In fact, it went so quickly, that I finished it within 2 hours of my flight.



I know, it looks a crumple mess, but lace is like that when it comes off the needles. It was sitting in the sink for 20 minutes, soaking away before the great block-up. I sat it in warm soapy water with a generous squirt of Dawn (thanks Secret Pal)



I know, black isn't the most friendly colour to work lace in, but I do love the look of black lace. If you're a lace newbie, I would recommend starting with a lighter colour.

Project Notes


1. I followed the pattern instructions closely. I didn't bother wth lifelines/stitch markers. I didn't think that this pattern was complicated enough to warrant these precautions. off the needles, I had a crumple mess.

..! ..


2. I did a wet block and ruthlessly pinned the shawl out. I should had used a tape measure to make sure everything lined up, but I didn't bother. I stretched and tugged until the shape looked triangular.

..! ..


3. There were only 2 ends to weave in and I was done. I left tails of approximately 6 inches, easy to thread and sew that way and they were going to stay woven in (somethig that doesn't alway happen with short ends)








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