I came away to Hyderabad at the beginning of August, where I’m not online all the time, hence the long blog silence. I shall be here a few more weeks, but I thought I’d better show you some stuff I made. Although I didn’t make this one very recently, but a few months ago (finished it in April, to be precise).

I joined one of those KALs on Ravelry for a semi-circular shawl. I keep getting attracted to knit lace and mostly those patterns are for shawls. Sadly, there isn’t much call for shawls where I live, so I thought I’d try making this circular. I was also inspired by one of the other KAL-ers who was going to do the same thing. So here is my Vernal Equinox Shawl Surprise (I called it Hopeful, since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off).

IMG_6649

It isn’t perfect, and you can see the ladders where I switched needles from the magic loop, as well as a botched picking-up I did for a stitch I dropped. Most of my step-by-step progress is on my Rav project page, but here are the salient details.

Yarn: Common or garden acrylic sold by the hank, about two hanks. I’d called it a fingering weight.

Needles: 3mm single circular, using magic loop.

Pattern: Vernal Equinox Shawl Surprise (Rav page) by Lankakomero, available as a free Rav download.

Time & Size: It was 54″ when pinned out to block, and took me about 9 weeks to knit. Part of the time may have been because I was discouraged by the mess I was making of the picking up.

Extra: My notes on Rav give the details. In the end, converting this from semi-circle to circle wasn’t very hard. With help from the designer, I began by dropping the edge stitches from the charts. So basically you work just the central block of stitches, and remember to double the stitch count that you must have on your needle at the end of each clue. Towards the end, I was quite happy, because the pattern is such that you know where in the chart you need to begin your next clue so that the design remains centered. No breaking your head over that bit.

This would make a lovely tablecloth if worked in thread, and of course I’d be much happier without those flaws, but learning-wise, I’m content. I need to tackle one of those triangles and turn it into a square one of these days. Which I hear there’s a group for on Rav (what is there no group for on Rav??!!).

Here in Hyd I’m happy reading, eating and occasional shopping, although that hasn’t included any yarn-related purchases. Before I forget yet again, I’d like to show off some gorgeous yarn I got from Deneen ages ago in the Three Prizes giveaway. Here it is:

Amaizing yarn

Isn’t it lovely? It’s made of corn fibre and I love the colours. Sorry I haven’t blogged about it before, Deneen! I’m trying to see what sort of pattern it will suit.