Friday, January 03, 2014

Color Affection

casblocking

I started my Color Affection Shawl back on July 17th, 2013 with my knitting group. We started this shawl as a knit-a-long. More than half of our group worked on this shawl, and we’re about 13/14 maybe even 15 of us in our group. I got side tracked from it, working on smaller projects between starting it and finishing it, and then buying the wool shop back in September, kind of made my life a tad busier. My goal was to finish this in 2013. I came close to finishing it in 2013. I worked on it like mad for the last few days of the year (after finishing all my teachers gifts, and a few store samples that I had to do). However, I ran out of yarn on New Years Eve with 60 stitches left to cast off (At the end, there was over 425+ stitches in the edging).

cashawldone

I was in luck… I had in my stash, a 10g skein of an orange hand-dyed sock yarn that matched part of the Colinette Jitterbug Ginger Cinnabar that was in my shawl. However, I only found the skein on New Years Day, so I was able to finish casting off, and block my shawl. I thought I had enough to finish the edging. I needed in reality enough to make a 2” edge, as the pattern calls for, but I managed to get in 1 3/4” but… while I was doing my last few rows, I weighed the yarn after each row to see how much I used per row, to make sure I had enough to finish. I guess somehow I miscalculated by 60 stitches. But that’s ok… I managed to save my project with some miscellaneous matching almost to a tea, yarn.

casdone

At first, as soon as I cast-off, I hated this shawl. Not because of the color, because the color is stunning. I hated it, because, even though I did the yarn-overs at the beginning of each row as a lot of Ravelers have done, the shawl curled along the edge as it was extremely tight. It wouldn’t lay flat and I wanted to chuck it across the room in frustration. I did not notice this when I was knitting it. I can’t even describe what I mean. I probably should have taken pictures before blocking it.

casone

My only hope was to block it. After blocking it, the shawl has redeemed itself a bit, luckily. It seems to be okay now.It still seems tight along the top edge, but blocking seems to help it lay flat. I wet blocked it on foam mats (first picture in this post) over night. Once it was dry in the morning, I un-pinned it.

cascolor

Using 4.0mm (US6) needles, and Colinette Jitterbug yarn that I had in my stash since I owned Robyn’s Nest (my online yarn shop from 2007-2010), I used one full skein of the Ginger Cinnabar (orange) colorway, I used 0.85 of a skein of Elephant’s Dream and I used 1.13 skeins of Lobster Pinch (red). I still have 3.87 skeins of the Lobster Pinch and another full skein of Elephant’s Dream (blue) but the only one I had 1 skein of was the Ginger Cinnabar. If I would have realized that I needed more of the 2nd contrasting color, I would have used the Elephant’s Dream as the 2nd contrasting color instead of the Ginger Cinnabar and put the Ginger Cinnabar as the 1st contrasting color.

I don’t think I’ll knit this one again, once was enough.

Top Width: 75”
Bottom Width: 86”
Height: 16”

7 comments:

Spinner said...

Oh you sound so frustrated :( Such a lot of knitting to not be totally happy with it. And it really is SO pretty. It looks like a sunset! I haven't really even started that shawl. I'm not, usually, a shawl-wearer, but this winter I think I might take it up. Yesterday I lay out all the fabric for a quilt I am actually dreading making! I don't like anything about it and it's for my Mom. She is put out because I made 8 quilts this year, but none for her.. so I'm trying to make this one by her birthday. She bought the fabric years ago and I snuck it out of her house to surprise her. But she was whining about not having a quilt and then said "I just want a little one to put on my bed so that cats can lay on it and not get my comforter dirty". SERIOUSLY!? That's what you want me to put hours of work into??? Grrrrr. I'll do it, just so she stops complaining. But I'm not excited about it. Plus, I've been dragging my feet so my deadline is ...oh dear....one month today! And I'm not using pre-cuts :(

Teena in Toronto said...

It looks gorgeous! Time consuming but gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

I have heard that shawl had some problems on the edge...I have had a similar experience with switch yarns at the edge of a top down sweater...one side is tight and one is not. Argh! nevertheless, the shawl looks beautiful on you.

Unknown said...

I love the color combo. The extra effort it took to finish it just makes it more unique.

Love of Cuteness


Sandra said...

I had the same issues with this - the edge was tight before blocking, even though I did every thing I could to alleviate that. Yours is gorgeous. I love mine, and at one time I thought I'd make it again, but I haven't and probably won't...

Celia said...

The shawl looks great!

g-girl said...

I had the same problem with the other shawl pattern like this--daybreak I think. And yeah, once is enough! :) it looks great though.