Using a 40” Circular Needle

After getting frusterated halfway through the first clue with my first attempt at this project and ripped it out. I decided to give it another go once I saw this gorgeous yarn. After several deep breaths and using excel to keep track of the repeats for each row things have gone a lot smoother! I may even go ahead and throw some stitch markers on between the repeats just so I can keep track of everything as I go.

I think the transition may be a hard part for me and I may have to go to a local “pattern interpreter” and see what they think when I get to that point. I have about 80 rows before that time though. Eitherway this has been a blast to make and after this I may go on to make the other shapes in different colorways.

7/8/13

Made it past row 90! Only had one hiccup and that got remedied very fast after a quick tink back. Really enjoying the breaks of the wrong side rows. Still dreading the upcoming transition rows since I’m still a bit confused on them but I’m sure I will figure it out once I get there.

Sorry for all the bad quality pictures. The apartment I’m staying in has poor lighting and my phone doesn’t have the best flash photography. When it is done I will make sure to have MUCH better pictures to provide.

I will say this. LIFELINES ARE YOUR FRIEND!

7/16/13

After realizing I made a mistake back in row 103 while I working on row 109 I tinked back until I discovered my problem and fixed it. So now I’m back on track and on row 107 and being MUCH more careful about my stitches and not missing any YO’s. The stitch markers between the repeats helps a whole lot in figuring out stitch counts and making sure the rows are ok.

8/2/13

After lots of tinking and learning how to create a yarn over stitch after the fact (wasn’t so hard actually when you have a crochet hook), I am now to clue 6 (transition and edging)! I decided against doing clue 5 since I thought the shawl would be long enough without it and it is still very pretty.

(pardon the details. I may need them when I remake this again later on this year) Since I ended the last row of clue 4 with the 444 sts total that meant I had 444-6= 438sts before the transition. I only did one row of transition (bringing the stitch count to 440 between the edges) and got started on the edging.

The transition confused me a bit since I am not used to reading charts but after scouring the forums on dartfrogs designs I saw where the designer had put the written out instructions.

k3, yo, k1, (yo, k2tog) k1, yo, k3

Hopefully having only one transition row will be enough to separate the last clue from the edging.

8/5/2013
BEADS!! This is my first beading project and it is a whopper to learn it on. Got a .75 mm steel hook to help the yarn through the beads a little easier. Have 4 rows of beading done out of the 6 in the main part of the edging.

8/16/2013

on row 21 of clue 6 now. I think I’m going to finish out after row 23/24 and try the lace bind off on a test swatch to see how I like it before I do it on the actual shawl. If not I will probably do a stretchy bind off of some sort. I will include what I did when I finish the project with my other notes.

8/19/2013

Ran out of yarn after row 22, so I got ball #5 ready to go and I am going to continue until after row 29 I believe so that I can finish out the leaves in the edging. I don’t know if I am going to do the lace bind off or a stretchy bind off for this but I am leaning toward the lace if I have enough yarn. No new pictures of the shawl because everything is so squished up on my needles. I can’t wait to see this thing finished and bound off.

9/27/2013

After a long break I got back into it. Almost ran out of yarn so I cast off on row 29. Using the lace bind-off, I still did the ssk’s, k2tog’s, and k2p’s with the bind off so it gave the leaves a nice point to them and didn’t disrupt the pattern too badly. All I need to do now is block and it’s ready to be wrapped up for Christmas!