Wedding veil shawl redux

ETA: thank you all for your interest in my pattern, wow, I wasn't expecting so many people! it seems there has been a little confusion as to how to obtain this pattern. the best way I have found is to click on the link below, this will open the file in acrobat from your browser, once the file is open and completely loaded, go to the file menu within acrobat and 'save as' or 'save a copy' (depending on your version of acrobat) onto your own computer.

thanks again!


Here are the modeled pictures, taken this morning.
It is a gorgeous day out, and we were surrounded by birdsong throughout the photo shoot.
(I also had the sun directly in my eyes whenever I faced the camera, so that’s why I'm all squinty)



stats:
Yarn: Knit Picks 100% Merino bare lace weight
Needles: US size 5 inox circulars
Time: a little over a month of straight knitting
Pattern: my own, you can download the untested PDF: (open in acrobat, then save from there)





I had a lot of fun with this pattern actually; it's a very simple knit, but made exciting by the Orenburg flavor.
Bill's mom is tickled by the flowers running up the center; she says it looks like a cat ran down the middle of the shawl. And that was actually what I was going for ;)

I had some issues getting the upside down hearts to mat the right side up ones, but that was figured out in short order.

A hint for marathon knitting like was one here: Audio Books, the knit was simple enough that I didn't need to concentrate too much, but that meant I got bored quickly, but the audio books really helped keep my brain occupied.

look! content!

Jen of JenLa said I should show in progress pics of my shawl just to show the difference between finished and unfinished.

Unfortunately not a day after I got her comment I finished the shawl!

Yesterday I set it to block at the motel, and I'll be picking it up tonight, I'll have modeled pictured tomorrow.

Unblocked, it came out to roughly 5 feet:



Blocking: seven and a half feet x 26 inches:



Speaking of jenla
Thanks to everybody here for voting for my adorable critters in La's contest of DeFeet. My menagerie tied for there category and I recently received this in my mailbox:



I love them La, Thank you!

Saturday Sky

the blog has been devoid of knitting content lately.
I know...I suck.
the problem is that I've been knitting almost exclusively on the wedding veil shawl, which is really long, and hard to photograph well, so I really don't have much to talk about.
I'm almost done though, so things should be getting a little more interesting around here soon.

to tide you over... here have a pretty Saturday Sky.

the air was positively thick with birdsong this evening while I was out taking the picture, it's getting toward mating season and everybody was putting on a good show.



Saturday Sky, taken Saturday, April 14, 2007, at 7:30pm, out back of the platypus nest.

Last knit night until autumn

Our local knit night only meets during the winter months, I live in a tourist town, so once the warmer weather starts everything gets really, really busy. Most of the women who attend work at or own businesses that go from nada to 100mph during the summer, so not many people have time to meet or knit.

I'm going to take the sheep shawl in to show off, and the wedding veil shawl to work on.

It's coming along quite nicely, I'm a little over 1/3 done so far, and I'm quite happy.

Good news bad news

First the bad news.
My knitting hates me.
Well not really, it's my own damned fault, I swatched with bad yarn, and didn't pay enough attention.

Here is where I was last night on the wedding veil shawl:


Not bad you say, but take a closer look:


Yeah, the upside down hearts are all screwy. The decreases are pulling the yarn from the yo's below, making a thicker portion between the yos, so it looks weird and ill formed.
I think I've fixed the problem, but unfortunately I needed to rip back to do it properly.
Le sigh.
Here is where I am as of this morning:


This is quite discouraging since I'm working on a deadline here, this needs to be done by may, and I don't have much time!

Ok, the good news?

CONGRATULATIONS EUNNY!!!
Eunny Jang of See Eunny Knit! (one of my favorite knit blogs) just became editor for Interweave Knits!
YAY!

Before and after

I blocked the sheep shawl the other day.
It got huge!
Before:



After:


A lot of people said when they saw the unblocked picture that it hardly needed blocking, and so did I, but now that I see the difference, it's amazing! The Zephyr is just awesome to work with, I was afraid that the washing as blocking would take away it's sheen, but if anything it got even better.

Modeled:

(not the best picture, but the best I could do with a tripod and a 10 second lead.)

I can't wait to give this to Monica.
It's a good thing that may is right around the corner!

Up next, the wedding veil shawl.
I have a little started on it right now, and it looks rather un-assuming, but I'm hoping that it transforms as beautifully as the sheep shawl did. I'm only knitting it in merino lace weight though. But it feels like it has a lot of stretch to it, and it's buttery soft and cozy.

Thinly veiled excuses.

Progress on the Sheep shawl has been halted once again, but his time, not due to headaches, but because of INSPIRATION!

I've been planning on knitting my own wedding veil for quite some time now, but the specifics have been fuzzy. I have tutorials up the wazoo on how to construct a wedding veil out of tulle and etc. but no clue how to go about achieving the same shape with a knitted fabric. I knew I could get good drape out of knitted lace, in fact, I could get a drape and fabric that I preferred much more than that offered by stiff tulle.

Then there was the issue that I wanted something that would be dual purpose, not just a veil but something that could be deconstructed to serve as a shawl during the reception. (I know, I'm picky.)

Enter this:

The very first shawl had the exact shape I was looking for, rounded edges, but long, not circular.
I immediately bought the book (it has a lot on shawl constructions, especially Farose, which I'm dying to try).

Unfortunately when I got it home I realized that while the shawl had the perfect shape it had a very weird and awkward construction. The pattern has you knitting a long strip of the edging, but then only picking up a few stitches in the middle to begin the center and then picking up edging stitches along each side with every row until the entire edging strip is connected and then continuing with the main body of the shawl. This of course means that this procedure has to be done twice and the two sections grafted together in the middle once you're done.

Now me? I HATE finishing, and the picking up along the long edge of the edging would mean ugly seams along both ends of the shawl, and possibly an ugly seam along the middle of the shawl if I decided to have a lace motif that didn't have any plain breaks for the grafting.

Luckily I also own this book:

(This is an awesome book by the way, I love the history and it gives not only shawl patterns, but instructions and tips on construction to make your own)

The Orenburg method is perfect for me, it too requires a long strip of bottom edging to be knit, but then the corners are turned and the middle stitches picked up and the cast on edge picked up to leave no cast on edge, then at the end of the shawl the process is reversed, the corners are turned again, the stitches bound of by knitting the edging sideways over them, and then the last corner stitches are grafted together, for an almost completely seamless shawl.

A little thinking and tinkering has resulted in this:

A small strip is knit, and the corners turned and main body stitches picked up, then the shawl is knit with an increase on each edge (similar to a triangular shawl done tip up) to give it the rounded/tapered look, then the middle section is knit straight until I reach the other end, where I will reverse the process and decrease back down to my original number of stitches, turn the corners, knit the edging sideways over the remaining body stitches and graft the last corner together.

So far so good, I've learned the simple short rows like method used to turn the corners and my swatch/proof of concept shows that the increasing works exactly as I had hoped, and doesn't distort the edging as I had originally feared. And I have the opportunity to practice some of the simple motifs that I am thinking about putting into the veil. Now I just have to make sure the decrease will work the same way, and practice knitting the applied edging (I've never knit a sideways applied edging before, and since the sheep shawl has one, this is also good to prepare me for that).

Once my yarn arrives I can knit a gauge swatch and do the math, then I can chart up the middle patterns and I can concentrate strictly on the sheep shawl once again.

(After my wedding I may offer the pattern for the veil/shawl up for free here, but it will be charts only, as that is how I knit, and writing up the long hand instructions after the fact will be a huge PITA for me)