26june2012
this project won first place in the “my first” category at the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters Guild 2012 adjudicated show. adjudicator Fiona Ellis commented:

“This is amazing. SO many beads. I love that it’s assymetric. That is really beautiful. I love it in that night colour. Fabulous. Love it.”

see all the talent in the guild here!

10oct2011
19 grams left. what to do with it?

26sept2011
blocked it last night. 2 tiny yarn ends left to weave in. finished size end up being 73.5 inches by 18 inches, and could probably have blocked it a bit wider. the blocked edges are a bit crinkly, probably because I didn’t pass the blocking wires through every row?

the first 4 photos were taken by my friend Ina before blocking. I may have edited out ferretone in one of the post blocking pictures…

19aug2011
bound off yesterday but haven’t cut the yarn yet, just in case I want to make it longer after I block it. tons of yarn left! I wished I’d made it one section wider, but then I guess I still wouldn’t be done! the last chart probably takes 30-40 minutes to bead a row. hopefully its over. I think I used 900 beads, give or take 50.

26june2011
its now taking me 15-20 minutes to bead a row… it started off slow, a bead here, a bead there, and sucks you in slowly, and then bam! its 30+ beads per row and a row takes forever… I may have to reconsider knitting chart F twice.. but if I don’t I won’t have the length… dilemmas..

and I will have yarn left. could probably have done an extra repeat…

4may2011
I’m pass the halfway point. I added extra rows after the transition chart and made a chart A’ that has even fewer YOs in it. doing the beading. the beads do seem to push the YOs down a bit so they look smaller, but maybe blocking will help. will keep chugging along.

15apr2011
did 8 repeats of basketweave. working on the transition now. then the crazy with the beads starts…

25jan2011
and the mistakes keep coming… did 6 rows on the bus this morning, and realized I did the wrong increase again on the first row… took about 20 minutes to fix that this time.

13jan2011
noticed yesterday that I made a mistake around row 25 of my second repeat. I’d swapped the order of a k2tog & yarn over. when I noticed that, I had just finished row 4 of my third repeat… hmmmn… I decided to try an fix it. because of all the yarn overs and decreases, to reorder the 3 stitches requires dropping about 8, and of course, there are k2tog & k3tog & yarn overs I had to keep track of. on top of that, I was on my commute in a greyhound bus, and only had stitch markers and a paper clip with me. I think I spent about 2 hours of my commute fixing it, and then another hour at home, where I got out my 2.5mm bamboo double points. would probably have only taken my 1-2 hours if I’d done it all at home.

fixing it felt like an accomplishment in some ways. I wish I got pictures of the partial mess. I might have made a mistake knitting it back up, but its probably only a twisted stitch and hopefully not too noticeable. frogging and reknitting those 12 rows would probably only have taken me 2-3 hours. maybe frogging would have be easier?

and I still forgot to bring life lines today…

9jan2011
3/4 of the way into the second repeat of the basketweave. there’s a mistake in the chart for the first row, which I noticed when I was about four rows into the second repeat. the left leaning decrease 3 stitches before the end of the first 2 sections should be a right leaning decrease on the other side of the yarn over. if you don’t do it this way, there’s a bit of a discontinuity. I’m also doing a 3 stitch decrease that puts the centre stitch over the other 2. if I’m a bit more hardcore, I think I would actually do left leaning & right leaning 3 stitch decrease, but the centre one works ok. also thinking that a good place to put beads would have been at the 3 stitch decrease.. bit too late now though…

15dec2010
ripped back and picked up the cast on, and did the extra beaded cast on followed by a k2tog on the next row. decided that it is better to have a shawl that takes a year than a shawl hibernating for eternity, so no beads in the basketweave section. I’ll put beads in the cherry blossom section, but at this point it is unclear whether I’ll string the beads on from the other end or do the hook on a wire thing..

13dec2010

Need to learn to read instructions. started beaded cast on with beads on every stitch instead of every other.. undid it because the every other look is much nicer. of course, the cast on ends on a no bead, and after doing another 12 rows, I realized the no bead corner bugs me a little bit. if I decide to undo, I would cast on 96 stitches, have a bead on the last stitch, and then k2tog for the first stitch in the next row. also doing seed stitch borders instead of garter.

I may yet undo… I’m putting a bead above every yarn over, and its going to take forever.. trying to decide how to incorporate the beading. this will be my first beaded shawl