My latest finished object is my purple Kassiani shawl. This was a fast knit, despite its generous size– I cast on June 5 and bound off two days ago, so just about a month for a two-skein lace shawl. But this pattern was so fun, and even though it looks complicated, it’s not really a difficult lace. And it was just the kind of lace I’d been craving, so I found myself knitting on this whenever I had the brainpower to spare.
I used a skein of Lolodidit Everyday Sock in the color Prince, as well as a mystery skein of almost-matching yarn with a sparkle thread. They’re both a rich, deep purple with a hint of black, and it’s really hard to capture the sparkle in photos. But it’s there, I promise! I used the Lolo yarn for the first four sections (including that small cast on/set up section) and then with the big lace section I alternated the Lolo and the sparkle. When I got to the final lace chart, I switched to just the sparkle. Overall I think I used about 750 yards, give or take a bit.
Blocking is the real magic for shawls like this — that’s when they go from okay to magnificent. I’m really proud of this one and can’t wait to wear it out and about. Maybe this is a good reason to work from the office sometimes! This pattern is by Dee O’Keefe, who also designed the Dowland shawl I knit with my Bonny Lass yarn, and I loved knitting both of them. She’s got a few patterns on Create2Thrive but not all of them — most are on Ravelry — so I hope she starts selling in other places before I need to knit another big lace shawl!
Happy Friday, friends!
This is Facebook’s fault. Lolo shared a photo of socks made with the variegated, which is a new Halloween colorway called Beetlejuice, and I had to get a skein of coordinating Wonka purple to go with it. I’d planned to do socks but now I’m thinking a sparkly shawl would be lovely too. I mean, we all know it’s just feeding the stash at the moment, but it’s pretty high on my To-Knit list!
This isn’t even the whole thing. From tip to tip, this baby is over eight feet long. I have no idea how that happened, except, you know, gauge. If you don’t count the angled ends, it’s about 70″ long, which is much closer to the pattern’s 73″ length. Also, I used less of Color B and more of Color C than the pattern said I would, and again, no idea. Whatever. That’s kind of what I love about this pattern: it works really well with “whatever”. I made some mistakes? Whatever. I added an extra two rows to that section? Whatever. I did the final border wrong for the first two rows? Whatever. It’s all good!
Because it doesn’t really matter! There are so many patterns and textures and colors that no one knows what it’s “supposed” to look like, and no one is going to look closely to try to find mistakes. And if anyone where to do that, that would be weird and I don’t really care what they think anyway.
WHY I thought this would be a fun puzzle, I don’t know! There are so many black pieces and shades of gray and I despair of ever finishing it, but I’m just stubborn enough to do it, if for no other reason than to allow myself to buy a more colorful puzzle.
bonnyknits 