Peacock Feather Shawl II - Finished!

Wow.  Has it really been a month since I've posted anything?  Well, I have been busy.  I finished Artsygal 2 back on October 20, and discovered a hole in it when I was blocking.  I still need to fix it.  More on that in a later post.  I also whipped this little shawl out while I pondered how to fix my other shawl.  I knit this for Ellen of Earthfaire.  She will be kitting it up for her store.  Thankfully the pattern instructions have been completely revamped and are now super easy to follow.  This one came out a little bit smaller than my first one. I think it is due to the Ella Rae, which just doesn't quite have the bulk of the Rowan Baby Merino Silk DK.  But on the bright side, at least I didn't run out of it.  I have more yarn to make another one and I bought extra so I can make the shawl bigger.

Pattern:  Peacock Feathers Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Ella Rae Lace Merino DK
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - Finished!

After I finished knitting my Black Eye Galaxy skein I pulled this project out and worked on it in California, and on the flight back.   Our plane was delayed by 3 hours, which really sucked as we didn't get in until 1 am on July 2.  Needless to say I did not go in to work on Tuesday.  I like the pattern, but it is not very well written.  There are pretty good instructions for the first section, and even some not so bad ones for the second section, enough to get started anyway, but after the first section I did a lot of reverse engineering from the photos.  I don't think the stitch counts are correct either.  I also ran out of my Rowan yarn in the third section and was only able to complete 1 of the 3 ridges called for.  And one of my yarns ran when I soaked it.  I suspect the Rowan because it was blue.  I may play around with this pattern again, but if I do I will definitely rewrite it, and get more yarn so I can make it bigger.  The edge that is on the rail is 58”, the right side coming down to the point is 38.5” and the left side that includes the bind off is 40.5”.

Pattern:  Peacock Feathers Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Rowan baby silk merino dk
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - First Section Done

I spent some time last week working on this project and got to the point where I used the Rowan yarn.  I've since knit one of the feathers but don't have a picture of it yet.  I'm liking how the colors are working out.

Pattern:  Peacock Feathers Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Rowan baby silk merino dk
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - Take Two

It turned out that the Hikoo Trenzado yarn I was sent for the first incarnation of the Peacock Feathers Shawl was not a good match for the Zauberball Starke 6.  The pattern calls for Rowan baby merino silk dk, but that yarn is not really a dk weight.  It has 135 m / 50 g or 2.7 m/g and the Zauberball has 400 m / 150 g or 2.66 m/g, the Hikoo Trenzado in contrast has 100 m / 50 g or 2 m/g.  You might not think that would make a big difference, but when it comes to yarn substitutions, it does.  It is important to choose a yarn with a similar grist.  Ellen and I went back and forth over email while I was still in Norway, but in the end we decided to abandon that pattern.  Finding a good yarn to replace the Rowan was just getting too complicated.  But I didn't want to abandon the pattern, so I ordered the yarn called for and it arrived today.  It is always tricky picking yarn from the little pictures online, but I think I did okay.

The trip to Norway was for work, so I didn't really get any time for play, although I did get to a yarn store and did by a few skeins of yarn.  The hotel room was nice, not overly big.  It had two beds, but they were also not big, basically twin-size, as opposed to the two queen sized beds you might get in a US hotel.  The floor was hardwood, the shower was small, and the bathroom floor was heated.  It snowed every day that I was there and I had to get up at 1 am to get a picture of a snowplow that was making the circuit under my window.

They do have some pretty cool snow removal equipment.  It is a beautiful country, and the people were very nice, I'm just sorry I didn't get a chance to see more of it.

Pattern:  Peacock Feathers Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Rowan baby silk merino dk
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - Cast On

A month ago Ellen of Earthfaire approached me to do a pattern test knit of the Peacock Feather Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila.  She had come up with two potential yarn combinations and offered me  choice.  I went with the teal.  The pattern is a little bit of a challenge, being translated from Russian and there are typos and errors.  It took me three tries before I liked how things were starting out.  The pattern has you work backwards yarn overs, which I interpreted as meaning wrap the yarn in the opposite direction you normally would.  This results in the orientation of the yarn over being reversed - leading leg on the back side of the needle - and I am guessing that is done to force you to twist the yarn over when you knit it to close up the hole.  I tried working it with backwards yarn overs and just didn't like doing them.  Next I tried just working regular yarn overs and not twisting them, but that left holes along the edge that didn't seem right - the edge just wasn't substantial enough.  Finally I decided to work regular yarn overs and the knit them through the back loop on the next row.  That seems to be working for me, the edge is not too tight, and it looks good.

The next challenge came right at the beginning of the work.  The instructions have 5 rows, but then state to repeat rows 5 and 6 until you have done 96 rows total.  I did a Google translate of the Russian instructions and they stated to repeat the last two rows - so rows 4 and 5.

Pattern:  Peacock Feather Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Hikoo Trenzado
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)