Xmas knitting update N°1

Pattern: Laminaria by Elizabeth Freeman
Materials: Malabrigo Yarn Lace in Pink Frost
Modifications: Worked on 3.75 mm needles, added a few repeats of Blossom Chart and missed the final purl row of the final edging chart to use have enough yarn.
Start Date: December 13, 2009
End Date: December 27, 2009

This Christmas I decided to knit a couple of presents for the family. For my mom I made this lovely shawl. You may remember me debating how to proceed to knit the present in front of the recipient. Well I decided to go for the pretending to be knitting something for myself. This proved to be quite an easy and effective diversion technique as my mom is tired of me telling her I won't knit for her. If I did knit everything she asked for, I'd have no time to knit for anyone else.

This shawl was a race to finish in time for the festivities. I spent most of my 17 hours of airplane/airport time knitting. It was exhausting. During one flight a mother of 3 under 8 who was juggling her own children helped me deal with all my knitting paraphernalia while my rowmate had to use the loo. I was a machine. But I had to take a snooze break for the final few hours of my last flight. It was just too much.

The next few days, when not at the beach, I worked on the shawl. I managed to finish it before Christmas. Blocked even. But trying it on (and sneakily having my mom try it on) I decided it was too small, took out the border and added a few more repeats of the blossom chart before adding the border back on. Eking out as much as I could out of the two skeins of Malabrigo that I bought.

The interesting thing about this shawl that it curves around. There's a significant amount of increase between the different pattern charts that causes a curve rather than a triangular increase. When I blocked the shawl the first time, I allowed for the curve and ended up with a rather long but somewhat narrow shawl. My mom likes her shawls to be fuller, covering the arms more. So when blocking the shawl a second time, I really made sure to maximise the horizontal wingspan of the shawl.

As you can see, once it dried, it still has a bit of the curve to it, but not nearly as much as after the initial blocking.

Oh and my mom had NO idea the shawl was for her. While I was knitting, she tried to convince me that the next green shawl I had brought with me was really her colour.