Stellar Fade: Finished!

After finishing up the Omega Shawl I pulled this one out again.  I had been working through the two crescents, using about 5 grams on each side.  I had made a fair bit of progress on both of them when I realized that there were some important differences between them.  I had been working both to the clues 1-3 instructions.  I figured this out when I went back and was looking at the blog posts for my first Lunar Fade shawl so I ripped the second crescent back, winding and I ripped using my ball winder.  Then I put the instructions for both crescents into a spreadsheet, with the instructions side by side, matched up by row, so I could make sure that I got the placement on the purl stitch ridges correct, and use the increase placement and the eyelets from clues 4-6.  It went much faster the second time through.  I used the full sized skein that came with the kit to work the I-cord edging on the crescents.

The wing tips carried on the color progression and the 5 gram amount, ending with skein7.  When I got to the two joining pieces - the triangle and the diamond I knew that I wanted to use about the same amount of each color, progressing from skein 7 to skein 1.  I created a stitch count spreadsheet for those sections so I could get the transition points right.  I ended up using only about 5 grams total of each of those colors.  I thought about continuing the color progression from the crescents, which ended with skein 9, but in the end decided that having a break in the color fade would provide a nice visual break.  I decided to work an I-cord edging around the entire shawl, but I couldn’t do it all in one go and I had to figure out how to pick up the stitches the right way so that the right side was facing me when I started working the I-cord.  For the short section at the top of the triangle I just pulled out a fair bit of yarn, picked up the stitches with the right side facing, then went to the other end of the cable and worked the I-cord with the right side facing me.  For the rest of the edging, which was done in one piece I worked from both ends of the cake, picking up stitches as I needed them.  It worked very well, and avoided the problem of having a lot of stitches on the needles at once.  I worked extra rows of I-cord to turn the corners.

I really love how the shawl turned out.

Pattern:  Lunar Fade byLarissa Brown

Yarn:  Mad Scientist Yarns 2020 Jekyll Advent Calendar in Hybrid

Needle: US 5 (3.75 mm)