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Monday, January 03, 2011

Great Start!

The new year got off to a great start. Our flight home went very well, everything was on time. We even arrived at Stansted a little bit early. We'd estimated we'd be home by about 3pm and we arrived home just before 3pm. All was good. Then we arrived home to a freezing cold house. Tempeatures here, although higher than when we left and certainly higher than most of the time we were in Norway, were still low. About 4 degrees when we arrived home and our house wasn't much warmer. We normally leave our heating on but because our boiler is poorly we switched it off. We were worried about getting the boiler going again and it took a little while but we did it eventually. And we lit the fire too. The bedrooms were still cold when we went to bed but after leaving the heating on all night it's just about comfortable now.
Enough about boring heating stuff. When I opened the post I found the new issue of The Knitter and on the front cover was my 'Setting Sun' shawl. I'd forgotten when it was due in the magazine and wasn't expecting it yet and I was definitely thrilled to see it on the front cover.  I'm so pleased with the magazine photos.

This shawl is simply stunning and it's huge. It's a circular shawl and is worked from the centre out. Start with any circular cast on. I used the Turkish Cast on which is not usually used for a circular cast on but I like it. It creates a closed cast on. The shawl is worked in 8 segments and the pattern repeats are easy to memorise.

 There are lots of different ways to wear a circular shawl and I photographed it worn inseveral different ways. The shawl pin is from Nicholas and Felice. Their stuff is gorgeous.
 This shawl gets gradually bigger and bigger. Start with double pointed needles and change to circular needle once you get too many stitches for the dpns. Then change to bigger circular needles as it gets bigger. Once you've finished the body of the shawl, the border is knitted on sideways and knitted onto the body as you go. No sewing required.
 You will need quite a big space to block the shawl. I blocked mine late one evening and it was too dark to get photos but I did have to push all the furniture back to fit it in. I blocked it overnight and unpinned it first thing in the morning before the kids got up.
 The shawl took 250 gr of Malabrigo Lace which is 100% merino and a singles yarn. It's gorgeous to knit with and feels more substantial than you'd think.
 Some close ups:

This was a great surprise and a great start to 2011. I'm so pleased  that my second design for The Knitter made the cover.

5 comments:

Pixie said...

Wow stunning shawl and so good to see it after hearing all about it :)

Welcome home and keep warm..

Happy New Year x

Anonymous said...

That is gorgeous - absolutely!

Happy New year to you.

Northern Monkey said...

It is just lovely but I don't think I could handle over 900 stitches for the later rounds!

Sea said...

It was nice for the copy of the Knitter to appear between Xmas and New Year. I have some lovely lace weight yarn from my friend is the USA. I think there is around 1600m on the one skein. Am just looking for right pattern.
Your setting sun shawl is beautiful

claire montgomerie said...

this is so stunning! I wish I had time to make one for myself! C x