A Finished Product!
(EDIT: Pictures removed.)
Click on the small picture above (which opens in a new window) to finally see the picture of the Kilimanjaro Kat Shawl. It was a learning experience from the start, but one that I enjoyed. I had never used charts before, and the majority of the shawl was charted out, rather than written.
I found it helpful to enlarge the charts, and piece them all together as one big chart. Then, I used different color highlighters for each row, to differentiate between them. I also numbered how many stitches were in each section. Probably some things were overkill for a more experienced lace knitter, but it helped me tremendously.
The body of the shawl was knit from corner to corner, and then the border was added afterwards. At the beginning of each body row, a yarn over was used, and these yarn overs left “loops” on the edge of the body, which made it easier to pick up the stitches for the border.
On the border itself, I used markers to section off each pattern repeat, so that I could keep track of them. I had some difficulties with the corner sections, where the increases were made, in that I had added or dropped a couple of yarn overs. I ended up “fudging” those stitches on the final round before the hem.
I like the way the hem looks, but it was very tedious sewing it into place. (As a matter of fact, I still need to weave in the ends tonight.) The hem also made it easy to thread the blocking wires.
This is a close-up of one corner of the shawl, and this is a close-up of the opposite corner.
Besides blocking the shawl last night, I also worked on organizing my UFOs. We are planning on taking a short trip to the beach soon, so I want to have things to work on for the ride, as well as for lazy evenings. I now have all my projects in one bag, along with directions for, and tools to finish (should that actually happen!) each of them.
Today’s traffic was light, so most of the DC metro area must be starting its vacation. I actually made it to work in 20 minutes; instead of the 40 to 50 it has been taking me.