Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Camel's Back and the straw

I've been plodding away on a rectangular shawl, based on a curtain design from an old Anna magazine.

I received the single ply lace weight camel yarn called gazelle (yes, it's camelhair named gazelle). The color is a little deceiving because it looks redder than it actually is. It turned out to be lovely dark brown yarn. Single ply. I was a little worried about, but I knit a swatch and blocked it and it looked lovely. Absolutely lovely.

I didn't want to do a flowery motif with this chocolaty goodness. I opted for a geometric (PITA) pattern that took me several repeats to finally understand (a 70 row repeat, seriously?!). AND I ended up knitting one end, then picking up and knitting the other end and feared that I knit the world's longest shawl...but it did block out nicely.

After blocking, I noticed that it does look a tad feather and fan, but it's not. And the end bits, man, that makes up for the boring middle part.

The pattern wasn't fraught with errors, but there is one line that did have errors and I pretty much reinvented that line (81) to get the others to work.

zigzag camel shawl
Specs:

Started September 14 2008
Completed October 8 2008
Yarn: 1/15 laceweight camelhair yarn from Colourmart in gazelle
amt: 990 yds.
needles: Addi lace turbos US3

Mods:
Cast on- 2 edges, 4 center repeats with 3 stitches on each side for edge (127 stitches total) and the pattern repeat? Well, that would seriously be a 70 stitch repeat. I did 3 on each side and then the edge. Modified row 81 because there were issues (extra stitches that didn't get used up in the edging) -- k,ssk,k9,kf&b,k9,k2tog,YO,k,YO,ssk,k9...

zigzag camel shawl closeup

10 comments:

Stefaneener said...

Lovely rich color. Nice ending. I'm just flabbergasted.

fleegle said...

Spectacular! Glad you got the pattern to work--and the color is gorgeous, too.

Diane said...

I always love your lacework. Every one is more beautiful than the last. A 70 stitch repeat would drive me nuts!

Anonymous said...

That is gorgeous!

Soo said...

That pattern is gorgeous -- much more effective than feather and fan. And as you say - the ends really bring it to the next level.

Another amazing piece of work.

Linda said...

Totally awesome!!!!!

stringplay said...

I, too, always enjoy seeing all your pieces. I don't see it as feather and fan. It's much more lovely. Very nice. I wonder if could tell me which Anna? One of the regular monthly ones? I have several back issues. And I wonder if you have found there to be many errors in Anna knit directions? I haven't tried any lace from them yet.
Thanks!

Lorette said...

That is just lovely! It's much prettier as a shawl than it would ever be as curtains!

BadCatDesigns said...

Really gorgeous!

Lacefreak said...

Lovely! I'm always a little wary of knitting with singles but you shawl came out beautiful.