My Fireworks Festival Shawl is finished!
Ok, so it needs the ends woven in and a good blocking to straighten the top edge. But all the knitting is complete and it’s bound off and I cannot wait to finish it. Unfortunately, blocking will need to wait until tomorrow. Such things are all day affairs taking up the full bed, and I didn’t finish binding it off until nearly lunch time today.
This is of itself a slightly sad story, as I thought I had finished it last night, but this morning I made myself come to terms with the fact that the bind off was too tight. Right now the upper edge looks more like the two legs of a triangle and these have to be pulled into a straight line, while shaping the current straight bottom edge into a curve.
On the left is the bind off from yesterday. You can see how tight the edge is – there is no semblance of points. On the right is my reworked bind off from today. I’ve gained at least another 20 or so inches in stretch, maybe more once wet. I also stretched out the edge between points while still on the needle and compared this to the stretch I’m getting in the bound off edge to check that they are about the same, ensuring I’m getting maximum stretch potential.
Let me tell you, unpicking a k2tbl stretchy bind off in brioche ain’t fun. When I did the bind off a 2nd time I used a size 4US / 3.5mm dpn for my right hand needle to make it much much looser.
While some stores are set to slowly start reopening around us, for the most part the need to stay at home as much as possible persists. We’ll also need to wear masks for any shopping as of Monday. We started wearing the ones I made us two weeks ago, but I’m happy it’s being made mandatory. A) I think it’s smart and B) people suddenly switched from hostile to friendly when they see us in masks with the official requirement being put in place.
In general, I know we’re far less impacted than many, since working from home was already the norm (or a fairly easy shift for my husband), and we have no children. However, things like shopping do take longer and are more stressful, and now it seems like a never ending cycle of making meals and cleaning up from them. I do resent slightly that, while staying home more, it feels like I get less time for knitting and crafting. So, finishing the shawl today felt like a real win.
Anyway, tomorrow I’ll block it to reveal it’s full fireworks glory. Expect more pictures to come…
I also received my latest yarn shipment this week with it’s substituent to the sadly disappointing tweed I’d previously ordered. I went on a bit of a Schoppel Wolle purchase spree:
The singles Gradient in the upper right is what I’ll use to knit up my cowl along with the white Lore I purchase previously. Already I love it so much more as I work on my gauge swatch. It’s deliciously soft and has the prettiest glow in the dimming evening light. Now I just have to hope there’s no bleeding or other catastrophic changes when I wash the gauge swatch.
The two Crazy Zauberballs on the left will be for socks. The top color is for me and the bottom for TheEnabler. My first ever socks were for TheEnabler in Crazy Zauberball and they are still going (if a little stretched out due to my slightly too loose gauge) even though he worn them about once a week for months on end, walking to grad school with a heavy backpack. In other words, these socks were not pampered in the least. Thus, I feel a couple for balls of this tough as iron yarn are a good investment. The Edition 3 in “English Garden” in the lower right was just too pretty to pass up, though I have ideas as to what I might do with it…
I purchased all of them online from MyLys, located in Hamburg, and I was very happy with both their selection and service. The whole website is also in both German and English, which was handy for me as I didn’t need to translate yarn descriptions. They also had some fun knitting/crafter toys which I’ve indulged in buying. I’m waiting for the last piece to the set I put together for myself to arrive, and then I’ll show them off.
If you know what you’d like to make as your next project, but the pattern you want isn’t in your budget, let me know what you want and I’ll send it to you via Ravelry as part of my pattern giveaway. It just needs to be available for purchase via Ravelry, and I need the link to it and where you’d like it sent (email address or Ravelry name).