Hidcote Garden Shawl KAL

It is not too late to join in the KAL... for more information, check this post. (We'll keep this one dated funny just to make sure it stays at the top...for future members of the KAL!)

Slow starter

I am still only on chart #2 =( I have a bad habit of dozing off when I knit in the evening, therefore I have lost stitiches So for me, I don't work on this shawl if I am the tiniest bit tired, which I usually am in the evening. I just stick with my dishcloths in the evening, so if I drop stitches it not a big deal to recover....if you know what I mean.
Anyway for those that are finished, congratulations, your shawls are beautiful, they do inspire me to keep on going, and I will.

I do have a few questions though, someone had mentioned an errata sheet, where do I go to pick this up?

How many ring markers did you end up needing to use? just being on the chart #2 I have used up a pkg of 20 already. What do others use? At $3.99 a pkg this could become very expensive.

Appreciate your help,
Cindy

Finished!

I finished the shawl on Tuesday and I'm very happy with the finished product. I used Jaggerspun Zephyr in Sage on Size 3US Crystal Palace Bamboo Needles.

I started this shawl way back on October 15, 2006 when the Hawaiian Islands experienced an earthquake over the coast of the Big Island. The island I live on, O'ahu, experienced an island wide power outage. I couldn't work on the shawl I had on the needles at the time, because I couldn't see the stitches without my OTT light. When power was restored later that night, I put it away and didn't take it back out for several months.

I have mixed feelings now that I finally finished it as I had so much fun knitting, I almost wished the party would never end. At the same time I am incredibly happy with the finished result. I also had a great time with this knit-along and I hope to continue my time with you all even though my shawl is done.

Opal
the Akamai Knitter

Finally Got Her Blocked

I finally received my blocking wires in the mail and found the courage (and the time) to get down in the floor and block my Hidcote Shawl. Wow, she is a beauty! This is such a great pattern! I was especially pleased with the texture of the top section of lace--the light just danced off the shawl.

This was my first experience with blocking wires and there is a knack to working with them, like picking up enough strands of the yarn so that you can stretch the points out without fear. I managed to grab only one strand on a point and my cashmere yarn snapped. Yikes! But all was not lost and I successfully made the repair the following day once the shawl was dry.

I was surprised to find that after washing, fluffing the cashmere in the dryer, and blocking the final size of my shawl was the same as the pattern-44x90" I used needles that were one size larger than recommended and my unwashed/unblocked size was quite a bit larger so getting the exact final size was unexpected. I guess that's why cashmere needs to be fluffed up :-)

As usual, there are more pictures and ramblings on on my blog www.beadntat.blogspot.com
It's been great fun knitting along with ya'll!

Closing In

Last night I finished chart #7! I am enjoying Hidcote and don't care that is eleventybillion stitches across a row. It's fascinating to watch the pattern change and evolve....I'm easily entertained. I hope to get through the last three charts this week and have a finished Hidcote this weekend. I'm using Zephyr Silk/wool in Vanilla and love the way the fiber feels and knits.

Margene
http://zeneedle.typepad.com/

Ultimate Frugal Hobby

I just finished my Hidcote. It's my first shawl, first lace. Yarn: Knitpicks Shadow in Jewels. 3 skeins, the last one wasn't quite used up. The second picture shows how much was left. Cost $7.50

The blocking wires are welding wire from the hardware store, I got 6 rods for $1. Could have used one more. The blocking isn't quite square but I decided it was ok for now, and if I decide it needs fixing I will re-block. Needles, US #3 Boye 29" circs, cost $5.50 (go ahead and laugh, but I didn't want to have to wait for better needles to come in the mail.

Total cost for a gorgeous lace shawl, including re-usable supplies: $15.00 Divide that by 59, the number of days in Jan and Feb, and that comes to 0.25 per day. Wow, where else can you get value like that?! A quarter for hours of entertainment each day.

I am thrilled with the way it turned out. It entered my mind to make another one... maybe next year. The family is starting to make comments about the amount of time I spent knitting to finish before March 1st.

It measures 77" across the long side and 58" across the short legs, and 48" down the back of neck to point. Miriam got 90 across the top and 44 down the back... maybe I stretched it down rather than across? Anyway, I am really happy with it. Thanks to you all who helped me get started. Thanks for the ladies running this site, and thanks to Miriam for such a great pattern!

And the Oscar goes to...

Miriam for Outstanding Achievement in Lace Knit Shawl Design! And for Best Supporting Knitter..... well I did finish Hidcote on Academy Awards Sunday ;-)

I had a few struggles with getting a cast-off to meet my excessively perfectionist expectations, but after several sessions of undoing the cast-off stitches and putting them back OTN (can you call that tinking?) I finally got it right. I apologize for the blurry pictures--it's a crummy camera. I put all the details on my blog along with a few more pictures. I'll try to post better pictures once the wires arrive and I get the thing properly blocked. Just as an aside, I ended up using 125g of cashmere, or ~1920 yds. That's a pretty significant difference from the pattern. You can read about it here

And now I think I'll go back to watching all the pretty dresses and all the pretty people, er the Academy Awards. I'm still waiting to see if Helen Mirin wins for her role as the Queen :-)

Almost there

Well, I've been knitting madly and am on row 19 tonight. Two more rows and a cast-off and I'll be done, done with knitting that is. When I wrote my last post the other day I figured I had knit all the tough stuff and was on the home free stretch. Yeah right! Then I came to the little box with the 4 in it at the beginning of the last several rows. What the ***? Here's another tip ya'll: Knit 3 together first, slip the stitch you just made back on to the left needle, pull the next (4th) stitch over the slipped stitch (thus making it the 4th stitch in the cluster), and finally move the new stitch made back to the right needle before proceeding to create yet another one of those omnipresent double YOs. I'm a fairly loose knitter, but even that wasn't enough to make it reasonable for me to knit 4 stitches together as a cluster all in one maneuver. I've bypassed lace patterns that call for bunches of 5 or 7 st. clusters, deeming them too frustrating to do, thus interfering with my joy of knitting (the Trellis Scarf in IK last year comes to mind).

Anyway, thanks for all your kind comments from the other day. To those who are progressing at a turtle's pace I say knit on! Sanity breaks are a good thing, so take them as needed. And remember, the turtle did eventually win the race. Oh, and I think that knitting this shawl as a heirloom for your mother is a perfectly wonderful thing to do (was it Cheryl???). I knit a Kiri shawl for my Mom for Christmas and she simply oozes with joy every time she puts it on (I know 'cuz we live together ;-)

I ordered a set of bona fide blocking wires--I knew this big shawl wouldn't block to my satisfaction without them. It'll be at least a week before they arrive, but I'll let you know when I get those "magic" pictures. I think blocking lace is magic!

{{{hugs}}}
Kristina