Christmas Shawlette II - Beauty Shot

I finally got home early enough to get some natural light, and the sun was shining.  The colors blend so beautifully in this shawl, which you might not expect considering that red and green are on opposite sides of the color wheel.  This shawl was knit without any transition rows, I just made sure to match the colors when I switched skeins.  The edging on this one is a little different as well.  Instead of binding off the three stitches in purl I bound them off in knit, which made a little point on each of the scallops.  For comparison, here is my other Christmas Shawlette.  The biggest difference from a color perspective is the striping that you get with the first color change from the gold to the silver and gold.

Christmas Shawlette II - Finished!

I finished this up this evening.  On this shawl I did not do any transition rows when I changed skeins and, although it is a bit hard to tell with this photo (I had to use flash), the colors flow beautifully into each other.

For a comparison of technique, here is my other Christmas Shawlette in which I did do transition rows between the skeins.

Both techniques yield beautiful results, so personal preference should dictate which technique one uses.  For myself, I like the ease of no transition rows, and it definitely makes it easier to use up each skein before going on to the next, reducing the risk of running out of yarn.  On the silver and gold shawl I had 20 grams of yarn left over, but on the green and red one I only had about 10 grams left over.  If I had been careless with my transitions, I could easily have run out of yarn.

Christmas Carol Shawlette - Finished!

Once I felt confident that I had memorized the edge chart, it went very quickly.  What can I say?  I love the yarn, love the pattern, love the colors.  The yarn is Tinsel Toes, the pattern is Christmas Carol Shawlette, the 2011 Christmas Club, and the color is Tinsel, Tinsel.  This is the first time that I have knit with Tinsel Toes and I really like it.  The Tencel adds a nice sheen and I think the shawl will be both elegant and cozy, which is a hard to beat combination.

Christmas Carol Shawlette - Chart 3

I managed to squeeze some knitting in this morning before I had to start the cooking and finished up the two repeats of Chart 3.  I started the second skein on row 13 of the second repeat of the chart.  The turkey is in the oven, and the bread is toasted for the stuffing.  Pretty soon we will have to chop the celery and onions and peel the potatoes and get them all cooking for the stuffing.  I saute the celery and onions in butter (lots of butter), boil and mash the potatoes, cut the bread up into cubes and mix them all together along with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning.  Yum.

Christmas Carol Shawlette - Chart 2

I was four rows into Chart 2 before I realized that I had forgotten to do the increase row.  Luckily there were only 46 stitches in each row to tink back.  That is what I get for trying to multitask.  But even with the false start I still managed to finish the second chart while I was watching King Solomon's Mines on TCM.  I had to use the flash to take this picture, which really brings out the gold in the yarn and almost makes it look metallic.

Christmas Carol Shawlette - Chart 1

Of course, once I had finished Clue 1 of the Jungle Book I was restless for another Unique Sheep project so this morning before heading into work I cast on A Christmas Carol Shawlette, The Unique Sheep's Christmas Club this year.  The yarn is Tinsel Toes and this is my first time knitting with it.  I chose the Tinsel Tinsel colorway, which starts out with gold and goes to silver.

There was also a green and red colorway option, and having seen that shawl completed I wish I had gotten both!  Can you have too much Unique Sheep yarn?