Sunday, December 31, 2006

The shawl!!

I finally did it! The tea shawl is complete and blocking. It wasn't finished without a few mishaps though. I cut out one of the repeats in the second chart (horseshoes). I also skipped a few plain rounds after the last chart. I was rockin' on the edging when I realized that I wasn't going to have enough yarn.



That's 14 points from the end of the edging. I nearly cried. After all I've gone thru with the shawl. I went to the Point to see if maybe they had another hank hidden away in some hidey hole and nothing. While there a group of people suggested finding another yarn, a solid to match one of the colors in the rest of the shawl and just have that one small section different. Tamara and I were headed to the Yarn Tree, where I found a ball of Frog Tree Alpaca in the perfect weight and colorway.

Prior to blocking, measuring approx. 38" across:

The completed shawl, blocking (52" across):

A close up of the different colored section:



And a close up of the chart that gave me such hell.



A wonderful way to finish up my year. How will I be spending my New Year's eve? On the couch, with a whole lot of Knit Picks Merino Style, using a basic raglan sweater pattern from the Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater patterns. I have a hankering for a black sweater with brown/cream/black stripes sleeves.

23 comments:

Zonda said...

Karen! That is beautiful!! I was so sad for you when I read the beginning of your post. Yahoo! You finished it! WTG! :)

Fiber-4-U said...

WOW !!

That is GORGEOUS !!

Dame Wendy said...

It's beautiful!!! Amazing job. :)

Theresa said...

GORGEOUS!!! YAY!

cpurl17 said...

What a beautiful reward for all your hard work!

Anonymous said...

It's so lovely! Great job...you should be proud, especially after so much trouble. I think the color fix worked great. It'll never be noticed.

Batty said...

Wow. I'm so impressed. That's magnificent. You have triumphed over the lace!

Ali said...

Truly stunning. I think we have another Monkee-genius on our hands. :)

MiniLaura said...

yay for finally finishing! It looks great. You can always bunch up that unmatching part. It's a pretty good match, though.

Jo said...

That is absolutely beautiful - I'm glad you were able to rustle up a skein to match!

Ed said...

Nothing to do with knitting, sorry,
Your comment on OLPP blog got my eye though.

What to do with a shed load of glasses that you'r old man brings home.

Here goes:-

use them as planters.
use them as measuring containers
use them to store pens and stuff in
use them to rattle beans in
use them to scare crows
use them as holders for more of the same
use them to catch spiders
use them as a talking point at a dinner party
OR JUST RECYCLE

Jennifer said...

What a gorgeous shawl! Congratulations!

Terby said...

Karen, it's beautiful!

Brittany said...

Go Karen! It looks awesome! The yarn that you found was a great fix. Go you for conquering that shawl!

Bezzie said...

Oh the suspense!!! From the beginning of the post I was hoping you wouldn't frog it all!

It's simply gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

Stunning, absolutely stunning!

mikomiao said...

gorgeous shawl karen! i'm so glad you finally finished it! what a lovely way to cap off your 2006 FO's.

Anonymous said...

Karen, it's beautiful! I know I said I wouldn't look until I finished mine, but I just couldn't resist! Thanks for inspiring me to start this one too! Hopefully I won't be too far behind you in finishing!

Unknown said...

beautiful Karen, absolutely beautiful. you should be very proud of yourself.

Gina said...

It is beautiful. This really proves that beauty is pain.

Sarah said...

Congrats!

It's lovely!

And Happy New Year!

Penny Karma, aka the F-Bomb Mom said...

That is absolutely breathtaking.

And I don't mean it in the sarcastic Seinfeldian sort of way.

turtlegirl76 said...

When I saw the pic of it blocking my jaw dropped to the floor! It is so stunning! A shame that you ran out of the original yarn but the substitute looks great with it!