Pattern: Gail aka Nightsongs. No idea why it has two names
Ravelry pattern | Web site
Yarn: Sundara Yarn Silk in Granite Falls. Used maybe half the skein
Needles: US6

This is my first shawl, destined to be my mother-in-law's Christmas gift. I saw Saccade's beautiful version of it in the same yarn, and knew it had to be done.

It was quite the mental challenge. I could not for the life of me get a mental hold of the chart and how it would translate to a shawl. The first attempt at the chart repeat, I knew leaves were not lining up and stitches were in places where they should not be. So very puzzling. I started over, this time using stitch markers and bam! I had bitten into the forbidden apple and suddenly I knew things. Everything.

The biggest revelation was that shawls are knitted top down. WOW!

I placed stitch markers each time at the beginning of each new leaf, plus one in the center, and so as the shawl grew I was able to clearly see when I was knitting a new leaf vs a filler leaf. It helped this first-time shawl knitter immensely. Now I get it, but would probably stick with using stitch markers regardless.

I messed up on the chart reading for the edging though. There is an extra repeat between the two final leaves, right in the middle.

But I get it now. Shawls from here on out will be a breeze. I just have to convince my hands and shoulders that they want to knit another one. My mind says More! but my phalanges, they say F*&#$ you.

So I've already posted some details of the shawl on Ravelry, and to post the photos on Rav I had to also post them on Flickr, and now I'm posting them here..maybe this is why I don't blog so often because all this business of posting is getting really repetitive, you know?

I feel like I spend most of my time uploading and cross-uploading and by the time I'm finally ready to write something down, my energy has waned and you see posts like, Hello. Here's a photo. My cat is wearing a scarf. OK. Bye.

I have to think about my strategem on this blogging business some more, particularly when it comes to knit-blogging. It's a good thing I don't talk about knitting on F@cebook. It would be out of control.

Comments [24]
Filed Under: Completed Projects