• This is an immediate cast on. Started the project as soon as I bought the yarn. As per usual with shawls, I didn’t gauge swatch. I go with the fabric I like, whether I manage to find that on the first try or many tries in…

• I may opt to go down a needle size given that my lace-weight yarn is thinner than that recommended. I may opt to add an extra repeat and I’ll make the shawl as long as I can before running out of yarn. Update: I decided that I do want a very airy finished product so I’m going with the US6. Seems to be working fine.

• I added an extra repeat (so I cast on 112st). This will have an impact on how long I can make this but I am going with the rec needles size. Mind you, my yarn is a bit finer than the recommended one. Since patterns so frequently add extra yarn as padding, I’m hoping I’ll still be able to get to the instructed size but time will tell. Update: I opted to buy another ball and to knit more rows than instructed in the event that my gauge is diff than the pattern’s cuz my version seems quite short at the moment. I do realize that it’s kind of hard to tell how big it will be before blocking but I have a vibe. I also made my version wider which calls for more length to retain proportion.

• The pattern page indicates that the lace is Feather and Fan (and I know that it’s frequently referred to as such). But it’s actually a Shetland motif called Old Shale. This article provides more intel: https://northernlace.co.uk/2010/03/12/feather-and-fan-ver...

• Here are some relevant deets to help me to use up every bit of yarn while also retaining some sort of proportionality between the segments: First 66R (the 11 repeats of lace) took 20g. This means that each row takes ~0.3g of yarn, at least in the lace segment. On the basis of this, I can work ~660R (incl CO and BO) total with the amount of yarn that I’ve got. The pattern is 404R (incl CO and BO). Update: I still have 27g of this yarn remaining. This shawl, knitted to 70” in the way I worked the pattern (see more below) would take about 150g of yarn.

• For reference: I retained the instructed length of the first and last lace segments i.e. the tips of the shawl. I made all of the other garter segments 28R each and all of the lace segments 36R each, except for the centre lace panel, which I made the same length as instructed the first and last lace segments. This doesn’t maintain instructed proportions exactly but I feel it will achieve a similar effect.

• FWIW, the first garter segment (which I modified to be 28R vs 40R in depth) used 8g of yarn. So it seems my math is working out. I’ve lengthened the scarf such that I should be able to work in my “altered” way (see above) with minimal yarn left over.

• About the Yarn: This is my first time using this new lace-weight base (Sonder Yarn Co - Haven) and I love it. The colours are stunning. It’s a lightly-plied, 2-ply yarn with slight heathering. It’s soft but might seem mildly rustic to sensitive peeps. It has a delighful sheen. It also has pleasant recovery but it’s not in any way “overspun springy”. It drapes beautifully but it holds its own - which makes it quite malleable and useful in various contexts.

• Cost of yarn: $100 - incredibly reasonable given the beauty and quality of the yarn.

• I believe that the instructed BO is Icelandic (but it’s not referred to by name). It is quite a loose BO and, if you worked a long tail cast on at the start, unless you moderate tension, your BO is likely to be notably looser than the CO. Update: I’ve reworked this after blocking because I want it to be firmer, like the CO.

Final Thoughts:

• I made this too long by about 10” but I had to, in order to maintain the symmetry I devised by my alteration of the pattern. If I make this again, I’ll shorten the first, last and centre panels to remove that 10” (~90R) extra length. (Note: I modified the pattern so this is specific to my version.)

• This shawl wouldn’t have been long enough for my liking if I had knit it according to the instructions. Moreover, I don’t think that I would have made it to the instructed length even knitting as instructed. Given that I widened the shawl by 18st, there’s no way I would have. And IMO, the extra repeat/panel of width is key.

• A propos of which, I don’t know how I knitted an extra panel of width (18st / 18% wider than instructed) and this still turned out narrower than the instructed final dimension. But the yarn suggested may have had very diff properties given that it has some paper content. I’m very glad I made mine wider. Update: I rechecked my gauge against the pattern’s which explains why mine is narrower. Lol. And really, I’m fine with the width as is. But, at my row gauge - which is also profoundly off - this thing should be far longer still :-) Fact is, I really like the fabric that I got at my gauge. I don’t think that I could have gone up a needle size with this yarn and got a fabric I like. And going up a size would only have made the length more problematic.

• While the pattern is lovely and the fabric produced with this Haven yarn is beautiful, I should have listened to my instinct and integrated an icord into the side edges. That would have made the vertical sides tidier (even though I blocked this within an inch of its life and it took me an hour to pin…) The nature of lace-weight yarn, esp when pulled taught, esp when springy, is that it’s going to pull at the pins. Of course, I can reblock this, but I still think the edges are a bit lacklustre. Note that I didn’t work an icord because I didn’t want it to detract from the lace - I didn’t want this to look too “done”, I was going for organic. Oh well, lesson learned.

• I blocked carefully with pins but perhaps I should have tried to use wires on the sides (which prob would not have gone well but might have made the sides slightly smoother.

Post-blocked gauge:

Stitch / Horizontal: I got 1.5 of a lace repeat (21st - of which 9 were garter and 12 were old shale) / 23st in garter 4”

(Keep in mind that I did my own thing so 1.5 lace panels for me is equivalent to 3 garter st, 12 old shale st and then 6 garter st. Since I didn’t read the pattern particularly well, this may be diff if you knit according to instructions.)

Row / Vertical: I got 1 lace panel or 6 old shale repeats (36R) / 34R of garter in 4”

Preblocked Dimensions: 19” x 62”

Post-blocked Dimensions: 19” x 80”