Knitting this for the June Shawl Knitalong (FAQs here).

My yarn choice was heavily influenced by this FO from Cristinitace which I think is beautiful.

June 1st - After some swatching yesterday, I cast on for real today and am using a couple of modifications to the pattern. (1) KFB in place of M1L/R (2) adding a YO between the 1st 2 knit stitches of each row and dropping it on the next row. This was mentioned in numerous project notes as remedying a problem with a tight/puckered edge.

So far it’s knitting up really fast! After a few hours of knitting I’ve made 6 of the CC1 stripes!

June 3rd This seems to be flying off the needles so far - I really didn’t expect it to be growing so quickly! I’ve managed to get LOADS done today in a few hours of TV knitting, so I’m already on the 5th repeat of row 15.

I rewound the Noro so I’d know exactly what was on each ball and separated into smaller balls of lighter and darker colours so that I could start with the paler stripes. There is quite a difference in the yarn size - parts of the Noro fit well with the Fingering, but other parts are much fluffier/fatter, which was concerning at first but now that more stripes are complete I think it’ll work fine - especially as the border will be in the heavier yarn.

This pattern would be SUPERB for a beginner as it’s really very simple and there is very little to remember. The only mildly fiddly bit is twisting/carrying the yarn up the side.

So far I’m a little surprised by the shape which is very long and skinny and there is a bump in the centre - judging from other FOs it’s going to be fine once blocked - I hope!!!!!

June 4th I’ve continued to make swift progress today. With just one repeat of each of the three stripes to go, there was a little of the 1st ball of the ecru left and the colour of the Noro was lining up to be the colour I wanted for the border so I decided to skip the last 3 stripes and move onto the border a little early. (The second ball of ecru will be kept for another Color Affection in a different colourway.)

I’m so pleased with the way the colours have worked out - especially the way the Noro has striped.

Despite the addition of the dropped YOs, I think there may still be a little puckering, probably the result of the yarns being carried up the side a little too tightly - this is something I’ll work on in the next one.

June 6th it’s finished! I used a 6mm neede for the BO and knitted 2 together through the back loop which gave a stretchy bind off. Unfortunately the other edge is a bit puckered from the twisted yarn at the side - I must address this in the next one.

It’s narrower than I’d expected and I don’t want to block it too much because I love the garter stitch texture (especially on the wrong side) so I’ll give it a light blocking and see how it goes.

PS - it’s blocking - needn’t have worried about the size! It’s grown to just under 90” x 19” - plenty big enough