It's so shiny and soft! SO PRETTY...
Ahem. What I mean is that after my last post I finally managed to get my hands on some appropriate beads, which was easier said than done. Because as soon as I realized that I wanted this shawl, I wanted it pretty much like yesterday, and even that wasn't soon enough. I booted up Google and found a few bead stores in the city. There was no way I was going to order beads online, I couldn't wait that long! The first store had a ton of beads, and a number of beads in the size that I wanted, but none in the right colour and shape that were actually in stock (and the lady who did the ordering had just left for vacation for two weeks... again I'll say that there was no way I could wait that long).
I'm going to interrupt myself here and say that I am not generally a blingy sort of person. I appreciate a bit of sparkle, but I didn't want the beads to stand out. I wanted to just be there and blend in and add a little bit of interest. After all, this was my first beading project and I didn't want to go overboard. There are definitely more beads in my future, and I may work up to a bit more bling but for now I was going for understated. Besides, the yarn is just so gorgeous that I didn't want to distract from it!
Anyhoo, the next two bead stores were underwhelming and still didn't have what I wanted. So I resigned myself to checking out the selection at Michael's, and sure enough, they had exactly what I was looking for. Go figure. Size 6/0 glass matte grey/brown beads with just a touch of sheen that blended in perfectly with the yarn. I raced home and whipped through the lace part of the shawl so fast that I hardly even remember doing it. There was some brief hesitation when I was trying to decide if I should try to do a second lace repeat but I decided against it. I really couldn't think of anything that would be worse (knitting-related, I'm not completely insane) than getting 20 stitches away from the end and running out of yarn. My one (small) regret is not knitting the medium size from the start. I would definitely have had enough yarn for it, but that's alright. Knit and learn!
The picot edging bind-off took an insane amount of time. I'd heard other knitters say that it takes a long time and also takes a lot of yarn, but I thought surely they were exaggerating. Last Tuesday when I came home from work I had plans to finish up the shawl that evening so I could get it blocking. I only had 4 rows left of the lace and the edging to do. I didn't take into consideration the extra beading that was part of the last couple of rows, and by the end of the evening I had finished the lace but only just started the bind off. Wednesday night I thought for sure I was going to get it done. I only had the bind off! How long could it take? Well by the end of the night I was halfway done and I was pretty sure that I was going to be binding off this shawl until the end of time.
Thursday was crunch time, since I needed to start blocking it Thursday to make sure that it would be wearable to a friend's wedding on Saturday night, and even that amount of time laughing in the face of Helen's 72-hour rule. It was do or die.
Well, I did, and by 9:30 in the evening I had it pinned out on a towel in the office and it was stunning. Perfect. I didn't even mind that it was the small size and I had 30 grams of yarn left that I now had to figure out what to do with. It looked just right and I loved every single silky soft stitch. I stood there and admired it for awhile before sighing happily, turning out the light, and closing the door.
I have to block things in the office because it's the only room in the house with a door that I can leave closed. If I don't confine it to this space, I know for certain that my cats, who love knitting, will lie on it and who knows what else. This method has worked well for me so far. I checked on it on Friday morning and it was still dampish. I checked on it again Friday evening before going to bed and it was pretty much dry but I wanted to make totally sure so I left it alone.
Saturday morning I woke up and walked into the living room and saw that the office door was open. I immediately (in my head) blamed the Enabler, and I asked him if he'd been in the office this morning, and he said no. I asked him if he'd been in the office last night, and he said no he hadn't been in there at all. Okay, so I guess I must have closed the door and not quite latched it and the cats pushed their way in. It's probably fine, right? I went in to the office and saw that sure enough, there were pins sticking every which way and the shawl and towel were scrunched over into a pile. This is when my heart started really racing. I quickly crouched down and spread it out, picking out the pins as I went, surveying every inch of it to make sure that all the stitches were still in the right place. Nothing seemed wrong with the lace section, and then I saw it:
Ahem. What I mean is that after my last post I finally managed to get my hands on some appropriate beads, which was easier said than done. Because as soon as I realized that I wanted this shawl, I wanted it pretty much like yesterday, and even that wasn't soon enough. I booted up Google and found a few bead stores in the city. There was no way I was going to order beads online, I couldn't wait that long! The first store had a ton of beads, and a number of beads in the size that I wanted, but none in the right colour and shape that were actually in stock (and the lady who did the ordering had just left for vacation for two weeks... again I'll say that there was no way I could wait that long).
I'm going to interrupt myself here and say that I am not generally a blingy sort of person. I appreciate a bit of sparkle, but I didn't want the beads to stand out. I wanted to just be there and blend in and add a little bit of interest. After all, this was my first beading project and I didn't want to go overboard. There are definitely more beads in my future, and I may work up to a bit more bling but for now I was going for understated. Besides, the yarn is just so gorgeous that I didn't want to distract from it!
Anyhoo, the next two bead stores were underwhelming and still didn't have what I wanted. So I resigned myself to checking out the selection at Michael's, and sure enough, they had exactly what I was looking for. Go figure. Size 6/0 glass matte grey/brown beads with just a touch of sheen that blended in perfectly with the yarn. I raced home and whipped through the lace part of the shawl so fast that I hardly even remember doing it. There was some brief hesitation when I was trying to decide if I should try to do a second lace repeat but I decided against it. I really couldn't think of anything that would be worse (knitting-related, I'm not completely insane) than getting 20 stitches away from the end and running out of yarn. My one (small) regret is not knitting the medium size from the start. I would definitely have had enough yarn for it, but that's alright. Knit and learn!
The picot edging bind-off took an insane amount of time. I'd heard other knitters say that it takes a long time and also takes a lot of yarn, but I thought surely they were exaggerating. Last Tuesday when I came home from work I had plans to finish up the shawl that evening so I could get it blocking. I only had 4 rows left of the lace and the edging to do. I didn't take into consideration the extra beading that was part of the last couple of rows, and by the end of the evening I had finished the lace but only just started the bind off. Wednesday night I thought for sure I was going to get it done. I only had the bind off! How long could it take? Well by the end of the night I was halfway done and I was pretty sure that I was going to be binding off this shawl until the end of time.
Thursday was crunch time, since I needed to start blocking it Thursday to make sure that it would be wearable to a friend's wedding on Saturday night, and even that amount of time laughing in the face of Helen's 72-hour rule. It was do or die.
Well, I did, and by 9:30 in the evening I had it pinned out on a towel in the office and it was stunning. Perfect. I didn't even mind that it was the small size and I had 30 grams of yarn left that I now had to figure out what to do with. It looked just right and I loved every single silky soft stitch. I stood there and admired it for awhile before sighing happily, turning out the light, and closing the door.
I have to block things in the office because it's the only room in the house with a door that I can leave closed. If I don't confine it to this space, I know for certain that my cats, who love knitting, will lie on it and who knows what else. This method has worked well for me so far. I checked on it on Friday morning and it was still dampish. I checked on it again Friday evening before going to bed and it was pretty much dry but I wanted to make totally sure so I left it alone.
Saturday morning I woke up and walked into the living room and saw that the office door was open. I immediately (in my head) blamed the Enabler, and I asked him if he'd been in the office this morning, and he said no. I asked him if he'd been in the office last night, and he said no he hadn't been in there at all. Okay, so I guess I must have closed the door and not quite latched it and the cats pushed their way in. It's probably fine, right? I went in to the office and saw that sure enough, there were pins sticking every which way and the shawl and towel were scrunched over into a pile. This is when my heart started really racing. I quickly crouched down and spread it out, picking out the pins as I went, surveying every inch of it to make sure that all the stitches were still in the right place. Nothing seemed wrong with the lace section, and then I saw it:
Right at the top of the plain stockinette section, a little off to the side, there was a long loop where a stitch used to be, and a couple of inches of teeny tiny stitches on either side of it. My racing heart stopped, and I almost burst into tears but luckily my rational self reminded my emotional self that I'm pretty handy with a crochet hook. I can save a dropped stitch, so why can't I pull a line of stitches back into place? The important thing was that it wasn't ripped. Thank goodness that silk is STRONG.
A few minutes of fussing with the crochet hook (and yelling at the cats) and I mostly managed to get the stitches back to where they had been (and also feel better). I didn't take a picture of the "after" because I have decided that it doesn't matter. I can see where it is, but I don't need to point it out to everyone else. I still think it's perfect.
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| Obviously I included this picture to show off the goods. |
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| For a more casual look, wrap it around (carefully) as to look as though you're whimsical and carefree (instead of uptight and controlling)! |
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| Cropped oddly because the Enabler managed to get the composter in the background of the only decent picture of my face. Good thing he cooks well :) |
Gotta love the goods!
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