The Fastest Shawl in the East

I was sitting around about two weekends ago, mere hours off the high of ordering two sweater's worth of yarn in one slightly expensive sitting, when I decided that I needed a teeny weeny project - something to knock off quickly and keep me on my knitting high between ordering the yarn and actually having it show up on my doorstep.

So I focused on my paternal grandmother - Elaine - who had her 90th birthday just this past fall - and went looking in my stash. I dug out the remaining hand-dyed silk/rayon blend that I had ordered from Interlacements last year for K's clapotis and did some mental reviewing of patterns that I had wanted to try out, and so settled easily on the Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style. Knitted so amazingly by Brooklyntweed in some Sundara hand-dyed worsted-weight yarn. (No wonder, huh, that these two talented people could combine to make such a stunning end product!)

I was - of course - impatient as anything to start it, but I waited until Sunday morning rolled around and then checked to see when the local public library opened to check out their copy (which I knew that they had!) - but when I saw that their Sunday AM opening was in fact 1 PM I balked and so grabbed the Munchkin (Peggers was sleeping in late that morning thanks to extreme kindness on my part!) and we hightailed it to Barnes & Noble. Luckily for my bottom bank line they did not have a copy in stock, so I cooled my heels until 1 PM at which point I flew to the library, snagged their copy, flew back home and started knitting! (And N.B. - I'm glad I did wait until I got the library's copy, as other than this particular shawl there is nothing - and I mean N O T H I N G in this book that I like even remotely!!!)

I cast on for the shawl on size 7 needles around 1:30 Sunday afternoon - and finished the shawl Tuesday evening after I got home from work - taking a break only to suffer from a 36 hour stomach flu that rendered me incapable of anything more than one single line of knitting Monday afternoon on the couch! I knitted until I thought it was large enough, realized I had gone one pattern repeat too far (leaving myself far too little yarn to finish the 14-row edging chart and cast-off!) and so ripped back easily, picked up my stitches, and happily did the 14-row edging chart and then cast off with just a wee bit of yarn left to spare.

Of course it looked like a bunched up piece of colourful netting when I finished...but I did my normal thing. Soaked it in Eucalan & cold water (I know it isn't wool, but the lavendar Eucalan like I've got is the loveliest thing out there so I use it regardless!), then pinned it out on a towel on the bed like I normally do (blocking wires and loooootttsss of T-pins!)

and left it overnight to dry and once again the Lace Gods smiled down on me.....and voila! From a tangled netting-like mess to a lovely shiny gleaming shawl that was popped right in the mail and sent off to lovely Grandma Elaine who happily received it just a few days later and called me right away to thank me.Nothing like a happily-received gift knit that was made in 2-3 days out of stash yarn!