Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Trousseau

Here we go, the 8th shawl of 2013!  I received the Trousseau Knitting Pattern as a RAK birthday gift last winter.  I had the pattern queued for a long time and am very excited to finally knit it up.  


I started off with two skeins of KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud in Fox Trot.  880 yards should be more than sufficient.  For once, I am not worried about running out of yarn in this project, I am only worried about it not being as large as I would like.  (Color Affection was really long, but not as deep as I had wanted.)  The times to modify the pattern to make sections larger are as you go, not at the very end.  However, I am sure that it will work out beautifully.  I knit this shawl on size 7 knitting needles.  

Notes from Construction
  • I am now comfortable with garter stitch tabs, but it was a little difficult to do with such a light weight yarn.    
  • I find it intriguing that all of the increases in the shawl are from 6 increase rows, rather than through the lace patterns itself.  This means that if you have trouble reading lace patterns  you can add stitch markers between each repeat very easily.  
  • ARGH!  I was about to start Chart B (after increase Row #4) when I realized that I had been working GARTER stitch rather than STOCKINETTE.   And I have no lifelines in this work.  Thankfully, since one of the last rows before I did garter by accident was right after Increase Row 3, I should be able to pick up stitches there.  Not such a horrible mistake, but still annoying.
    Before Frogging
    After Frogging
  • Thankfully the frogging went smoothly, and within a few episodes of the office I was able to get to where I was before I had to start over.  
  • The lace charts are really rhythmic to knit.  There essentially two different lace rows that alternate with different amount of spacer stitches on either end.  This means that the rhythm of each row is really easy to keep track of.  This would not be a hard knitting project to take to a social knitting group.  
  • I finished the first ball of yarn in the middle of round 10 in the 3rd repeat of Chart B.  
  • To join the new yarn I tied a knot somewhere in the middle and than knit with two strands together.  for a little.  (Thereby weaving in the loose ends as I go. The knot is just for stability.)
  • When I finally started Chart C I was concerned that my stitches were misaligned, but then I realized that C begins with the opposite slope to B
  • 67 g consumed total (590 yards)

This yarn is SO SOFT, I love working with it.  I kept getting distracted by smaller projects so it took me a little longer to complete than some shawls.  I'm sad to see the project completed.  I soaked the shawl in cool water for 30 min before wet blocking with new blocking wires.


After blocking, the shawl has ~2.5 ft radius.  

When blocking, I used to need to set up a barricade to keep Indy away from the knit project.  He would never eat them, but his claws are sharp and he could easily snag some delicate lace.  After almost 2 years of living with us, he has learned to NOT WALK on the blocking boards, so I no longer need to rearrange the room to protect my blocking.


Another fun note, I won prizes in the 12 Shawls Forever group for both my March and April entries!  (Winners are drawn randomly, so it was not about the quality of my knitting.)  I won my choice of knitting patterns from two different independent designers.