Mining the past

My vacation continues, and though I'm faithfully plugging along on the Icarus shawl, there's really nothing interesting to show. It still looks like a big black scribble. I've officially entered the "will this ever end?" stage of the project.

So instead, I'll show you something from my blogless past, knit sometime last year:


Behold the hallowed Birch shawl, from Rowan issue #34, knit with Kid(Crack) Silk Haze, in a gorgeous teal blue colour enigmatically named "Trance".


This project marks a bunch of firsts for me: my first shawl, my first lace project, my first taste of the narcotic that is KSH and my first real understanding of the miraculous powers of blocking.

Though I find the points too long and am never sure what to do with them, I really LOVE this shawl. It's warm and light, the colour suits me, and I'm really proud that I stuck with it to the end.


I have to admit that casting on 299 stitches was daunting, especially since I had to do it, oh, say, six or seven times till I got the hang of the pattern. I kept screwing up a couple of rows into it, making mistakes and not being able to figure out where I had gone off the rails (damn you, tricky yarn over!) So I'd riiiiiip the whole thing out and start again.

And again.


Till I got a clue and put stitch markers between each "leaf". I immediately knew if something was off at the end of every ten stitch repeat. Sure it was a bit of a pain to have so many markers, but totally worth it.

For stitch markers, I like using ouchless mini hair elastics, which are cheap, smooth, light and have the added bonus of being easy to cut out if you mistakenly knit one into your work. I'm also partial to their pretty jelly colours.