Highland Triangle Shawl 2

I finished the Highland Triangle shawl before Christmas and got it blocked so that it could be a Christmas gift in time for the actual day.

It's a great pattern, well written, but the outer boarder seems to go on FOREVER. I'm sure that's due to the fact that each row gets two stitches longer and longer.

Blocking feels like magic, opening up the lace. I'm always amazed when I unpin it and the points stay pointed and the open areas remain open. Wool is great, even if knitting with it during a commute is like carrying an electric blanket in my lap. :-)

Knitting time was more than three months but less than four.

Here are its vitals:

Pattern: Highland Triangle Shawl (Ravelry Link) from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls. I didn't make any modifications to the pattern, except for the yarn. I did use a couple of laminated excel spreadsheets to keep track of the row counts.

Yarn: Knitpicks Merino Style in Hollyberry. I think I ordered 11 skeins, which would be a total of 1353 yards (at 123 yards per skein). I must have used 10 of them and a little bit of the 11th; I can only find a partial skein in my stash.

Needles: US size 8, also from Knitpicks. My needles for this project were Harmony Options. I started with a short cable and worked my way up gradually to a 60 inch cable (as each row grew LONGER).

Finished Size: As it was blocking, I measured the triangle -- 98 inches across the long edge and 46 inches from edge to point. Big.

I took the images in the middle of the night, as I was wrapping gifts, and then it went to live with its recipient (my mom), so there are not outside pictures. I gathered some hints for the knitting of this shawl the first time I completed it, and they can be found at this link.

Click on any picture to see it larger.

Highlander Update

I'm still working on the Highland Triangle Shawl. It's moving along, although it feels slower and slower as each row is knit. Of course, that makes sense, because each row is four stitches longer than the last. To top it off, I count the stitches on the needle after each half-row is finished, to make sure everything is as it should be. The counting slows things down, too.

The pictures in this post don't depict the most recent look of the shawl. I'm actually working on the outer row. In fact, I'm almost done with it and with the shawl! And I'm glad of that. It's a really REALLY big project -- especially since I'm sticking to it until it's done. No breaks to knit something else.

A friend asked to see the pattern to see if she would like to knit it. She looked at it; she showed it to a fellow knitter, and they decided it was a Hard Knit. I don't think it's hard. I do think, because of the lace aspect, it's a knit that requires attention (just like any other lace). Mistakes are visible. It's just knits and pearls, and it doesn't require a real gauge, so wouldn't call it hard.

I've enjoyed it. I'm ready to be finished!

Regress as Progress

I'm making progress on the Highland Triangle Shawl, but sometimes, much to my chagrin, progress means regress.

This shawl is patterned in three sections -- a middle triangle, an inner edging and an outer edging. I've finished the inner body of the shawl and am working on the inner edging, which is the widest part. Remember, each row has two more stitches than the one which precedes it.

I was knitting along on the inner edging (lace pattern) when I looked down and saw that there was a mistake -- about 7 or 8 inches wide -- which caused that section of the edging to be off. It wasn't the whole edging, but just this section. The mistake was about 3 inches back from the working edge -- 10 or so rows. I tried to drop a stitch and see if I could fix it that way, but it was no good.

RIP.

I had to rip out 10 or 12 rows -- a total of over 2,300 stitches. I'm reknitting it now, but it has been a let down, to make that much progress and then take it out.

I knew that even if I could fix the section forward from when I noticed the mistake, I would always see it -- and would become the only thing I would see about the shawl. My first highland triangle shawl has a one row mistake in the edging on one side of the triangle, and it always ALWAYS jumps out at me.

So, regress, but progress. Mistake is gone. And maybe that is one of the great things about knitting. We can erase the mistakes.

A new project; an old pattern

I knew that I would do it. I told myself that if I had willpower, I could avoid it, but I didn't even fool myself.

I ordered 11 skeins of Merino Style from Knitpicks (Hollyberry colorway) in order to knit a second Highland Triangle Shawl.

Once I finished Steve's shawl, I picked up my jaywalker socks again, with the hopes of completing the second sock. As I worked on it, I decided on the Highland Triangle, and ordered the yarn. I knew that I would set the sock aside when the new yarn arrived, and even though I tried to convince myself that I could finish one project before starting the next, on the day the yarn arrived, I cast on. Oh, well.

In one photo the very beginnings of the new shawl is laying on my original shawl. Very much a beginning. I have more done now, but a long way to go.

Specifics:
Pattern: Highland Triangle Shawl from Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle
Yarn: Knitpicks Merino Style in hollyberry
Needles: US size 8, Knitpicks options (metal)

By the way, I ordered a set of the new acrylic Knitpicks needles. They are interesting, and I have imagine I would like them with the right yarn, but I wanted something "slicker" with this yarn, so I went with the metal. It's kind of useful, having my choice of metal, wood and acrylic.