12/26/10: (Edited to add: I forgot to mention, I started this shawl using the Belly Button method. Love it!) Almost done with this shawl. The pattern wasn’t very difficult, but I found I really disliked using this cotton laceweight yarn. The colorway is beautiful but the yarn itself is too smooth for my taste--it keeps snagging easily and yanking out in great big loops, and it tangles really easily. I used a similar yarn for my Cap Shawl but don’t remember having so many frustrations with the yarn, maybe because this shawl uses different needle sizes.

The instructions have you do chart C with a US 9 needle once, then do the chart C 12-row repeat 4 more times with a US 10 needle. I was on the 5th and last pass through the Chart C repeat when I realized I may not have enough yarn to finish.

I went on Ravelry and searched the completed projects and found that many of you used a LOT more yardage than the pattern calls for, sometimes as much as 2600 yards. I knew I only had 2100 yards and I also checked my gauge and found it’s 16 stitches/4” instead of 18 stitches/4”. So I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do the last pass through chart C and do the crochet edging also.

So I tinked back to row 10 of chart C (still on the 5th pass through chart C) and started the crochet edging. Instead of 8 chains and 4 chains I am doing only 4 chains. I think I’ll have enough yarn for the edging--we’ll see.

12/28/10--After getting halfway through the edging, and after looking at other pictures on Ravelry, I think I like the look of the original 8 chain-4 chain edging rather than only 4 chains. Also, I was getting less sure that I had enough yarn for the entire edging, so I frogged back the edging, and also frogged back to row 6 of the 5th pass through chart C. I am starting the edging again, this time the original 8 chain-4 chain. I thought about only frogging back to row 8, but then I didn’t want to have to worry I wouldn’t have enough yarn, so I frogged all the way back to row 6.

12/30/10: Finished knitting this shawl! I also had BARELY A YARD OF YARN LEFT OVER when I tied off the last stitch of the edging!!!!!! When I frogged, I really thought I would have more than enough yarn for the edging, which just proves to me that I have a TERRIBLE eye for gauging how much yarn I need and how much yarn I have.

I will try to block this shawl to the measurements specified in the original pattern, because although I was 8 rows short from the original instructions, my knitting gauge is a bit larger than the instructions.

I’m very glad I looked at pictures other people posted here on Ravelry because one woman used blocking wires, which I hadn’t thought of doing for this shawl, but which makes sense since this is a hexagon, not a true circle, and blocking wires would totally work for the edges.

So to sum up: The instructions called for 1800 yards of yarn, at a gauge of 18 stitches/4”. I knitted this at a larger gauge of 16 stitches/4”, I did not knit the last 8 rows of the fifth and last repeat of chart C, and I used 2100 yards almost exactly. If I had knit this to gauge, perhaps I would have used closer to 1800 yards of yarn rather than 2100.

Next up: blocking! I’ll have to rearrange my living room to fit my blocking mats on the floor for the circumference of this shawl.

Update: I finally uploaded my pictures from blocking the shawl. Sorry, I used a light green sheet under the shawl to block it, so the shawl might look like it has a funny color in the pictures showing the entire thing. The actual yarn was green, blue, and dark red, nice jewel tones. I’ll try to get a picture of Danica in her shawl, I think I forgot to take one.

I don’t think I’ll use this type of cotton yarn again for lace. It was rather a pain to knit lace with it because it was too slippery, and the experience of knitting it was more frustration with the yarn than happiness at the feel of it or at the pattern.