Peter Pan - One Edge Finished

I have been very remiss about posting my progress on this shawl.  After I finished up my Evenstar Cape I picked this back up.  I haven't taken any progress pictures as I finished up charts, nor did I keep track of my yarn usage per chart.  I did keep track of my total yarn usage for each skein, but that is pretty trivial.  I finished up one side on Monday, and the second side by Thursday.  Friday night I figured out the knit on border and started working on that, and finished up the first edge this morning.  I am amazed at how quick this one is knitting up.  I have already picked up the stitches for the second edge, which is why I draped it around the neck of my dress make dummy.  I just haven't been up to pinning it out for photos.


Pattern:  Peter Pan by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Luxe in Tinkerbell
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 6 (4 mm)

Evenstar Cape - Finished!

I finished up my Evenstar Cape last weekend, blocked it Tuesday morning and had Bruce take a picture Tuesday afternoon.  According to knitCompanion it took me 101.5 hours.  Not too bad.  I have never used the project time before, but decided to check it out after seeing some posts about it on the knitCompanion forum on Ravelry.  My modifications are available as a free Ravelry download - Evenstar Cape.  At the time I am writing this post it has been downloaded 116 times.

Pattern:  Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf, converted into a cape
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Eos in Midnight Delight
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady in the Lake

I have seventeen more repeats of the border chart and then I will be done with my Evenstar Cape.  I took a break from my knitting yesterday to work on my modification of The Once and Future King to knit it from the center out.  I had already taken each chart and reversed the rows and changed the stitches that needed changing to maintain symmetry but yesterday I went through the entire pattern and adjusted it to make it even more strongly symmetrical. I decided to call it The Lady of the Lake.  As I was working on the charts I remembered this skein of yarn - Velvet Teal on Ling - that I had spotted stashed in a plastic bin of sewing patterns (don't ask).  I had originally gotten it for a mystery crochet along that The Unique Sheep ran several years ago.  My crocheting skills were not up to working lace weight so I never did the MCAL.  The skein is 90 grams, which should give me enough yarn to work the pattern.  I'll wind it into two 45-gram skeins so I can work it from the middle to the ends without cutting it.  I still have to decide on bead color, although I might go with the iridescent gold beads again, with gold daggers.  I've already used them on my Once and Future King and my Evenstar Cape, but I have plenty left.

Evenstar Cape - Border Progress

I have been working away on the border of my Evenstar Cape.  I did modify the original border pattern a fair bit, adding a two-stitch garter stitch edge, which helps the dagger beads lay better.  I also slip the first stitch of the wrong side rows, changed the slant of the decreases after the point and only have two rows of beads.  The down side of having those dagger beads pre-strung on the yarn is that you have to pause regularly to slide them further along the yarn.  I have to be careful when sliding the beads to minimize the stress that I put on the yarn, so I slide them in groups of 5 or 6.  The up side of having those dagger beads pre-strung is you have a ready made progress indicator.  I am almost half-way done with the border and last night I shifted everything to a shorter circular needle.  I had been working on a 40 inch, but it was starting to get a little annoying.  Now I am working on a 24 inch.  It bunches up the shawl stitches, but makes things easier to handle.

Pattern:  Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf, converted into a cape
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Eos in Midnight Delight
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Evenstar Cape - Chart 3 Done!

It is amazing to me how quickly this shawl is working up compared to how long it took me to make my first Evenstar.  I suppose a lot of that has to do with experience.  When I knit the Evenstar shawl as part of the Mystery Knit Along (back in 2010!) I had only knit 5 other shawls and it was my first time using pure silk lace weight yarn.  It took me almost 4 1/2 months to complete.  This time around it will probably take me less than 2 months.  In other big news, today I published all of my modifications to Ravelry as a free download, with the permission of the original designer.  There is not enough detail in my modifications file to knit the pattern without the original pattern as I don't include all of the charts.  I do include my modified Chart 2 that shifts the start of that chart to make it symmetrical and I also include a modified Border chart.

Pattern:  Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf, converted into a cape
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Eos in Midnight Delight
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Evenstar Cape - Chart 3 - 48 Rows Done

Twenty-four rows, of 567 stitches each, in two days must be some kind of record, at least for me.  The nice thing is that I've made it through all of the twisted rib rows, so now my wrong side rows are just easy purls.

Pattern:  Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf, converted into a cape
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Eos in Midnight Delight
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Evenstar Cape - Chart 3 - 24 rows Done

I finished up the first 24 rows of Chart 3 today.  When this was done as a mystery knit along this chart was broken up into 3, with this being the first part.  I thought it would be a long horrible slog repeating those same 4 rows 6 times, but it really wasn't that bad.  I started Chart 3 on the 29th of August, so it only took me one week.  Every evening I would work a couple of rows, although I usually didn't make it through a complete repeat.  When you look at a pattern like this you think that it must take forever, but it really doesn't, especially if you break it up into reasonable chunks and just focus on making steady progress.

Pattern:  Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf, converted into a cape
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Eos in Midnight Delight
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)