A New Lease

At the yarn yard sale I went to last May, I saw a bag of yarn marked "free" that looked like something I might use. There were a couple skeins of yarn in a light fingering weight acrylic/wool/silk blend that looked like they might be nice for colorwork.

Inspiration hit me early in June and went in an entirely different direction. I grabbed a crochet hook and started in on a free pattern that I'd had on my list of possibilities for a while, Eva's Shawl (Ravelry link - pdf here). Stripes are a tricky thing and I decided to make them symmetrical . The stripe pattern counts down then back up in grey, and up then back down in cream.

1 cream, 3 grey, 2 cream, 2 grey, 3 cream, 1 grey, 3 cream, 2 grey, 2 cream, 3 grey, 1 cream

The shawl pattern is a repeating set of three rows, one of which is the eyelet row with the decorative holes. The eyelet rows fell in different places in the stripe pattern, which I think adds a little interest.

Once the striping was complete I just used the grey until I was sure I couldn't get another row out of what I had left. I'd ended on an eyelet row and it looked a little skimpy on the edge. Rather than ripping back, I took the work in a new direction and did a row of single crochet across the top "wingspan" edge to conceal all my ends from changing colors. I had just enough grey yarn left to put a thin edging around the outside eyelet row, putting a single crochet in each eyelet space and chaining two stitches on top of each group of two double crochets from the eyelet row. My yarn conservation paid off as I had about 18 inches leftover at the end and the edge had more substance.

I wasn't sure how to block an acrylic blend, but I do believe that almost any newly finished project can benefit from a swim in warm water. Just in case, I even contacted Karin (who had this yarn before) to see if she had any blocking tips for me. As it turns out, this yarn had been a gift to her as well, leftovers from another project made by her grandmother. I pinned it out to dry on a bed and I was surprised to find the blocking did open up the pattern quite a bit! It's really clear from looking at the stripe picture above and the finished photos below how much of a difference the blocking made.

My husband insisted that I keep this one for myself, and so far I have, but then again he also insists that the grey yarn is purple. What do you think?

My project page on Ravelry.

(Yes, those are knitting needles stabbed through my hair to hold it up. Amazingly, people still talk to me.)