Fall Shawl

Since I didn't get any good pictures of my sweaters in progress, which are actually in a state better described as 'in purgatory', and I didn't cast on anything new, I'll use today's post to show off an old project.

This is a shawl that I knit as a (late) birthday present for one of my best friends. She wanted a warm shawl to curl up with at home that would cover her arms and not fall off. I thought about doing something fancy but decided that something simple would work better.

I had been thinking of spinning up yarn for this simple shawl and I had some Shetland roving that had been fighting my attempts to spin it fine and worsted. Playing around with spinning thicker, looser yarns, I ended up with about 430 yards of woolen spun Shetland. I did a little swatch to figure out how many square inches of knitting this yardage would get me and then played around with the math to decide how best to use the available square inchage.

I decided that long rows would be best for evening out my somewhat uneven yarn. This also resulted in some nice subtle striping. It is nice when things work out like that.

After I'd knit the center of the shawl I picked up along the edges and knit a garder stitch border using 2 skeins of Harrisville Designs Flax & Wool Blend. The border is much firmer and denser than the center of the shawl which causes it to really hold the shawl on your shoulders. Another happy accident.

As you can tell by the summery photograph, this shawl has been off the needles for some time. In fact I finished it before I left London, though it didn't get in the mail to my friend until I was settled in Montreal. I am really pleased with how this project came together and I was even planning on making myself a similar shawl. The Dark Welsh that makes up half my new sweater was going to be a version of this shawl. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to spin up some more yarn.