Observatory MKAL - Finished!

 

I finished this up last Saturday, but this past week has been a long one, work-wise, and I haven’t had the energy to post.  It is a challenging shawl to get a good picture of.

This is the final clue.  We could use any of our colors that we wanted, so long as we had enough yarn (at least 25 grams).  The only two skeins I had enough of were A and C.  I wen with A as I had the most of it and I did not want to play yarn chicken.  The pattern calls for tassels, which I haven’t added yet.

Blocking wasn’t too challenging, I just laid it out and smoothed things into position.  I only pinned the tail out (clue 7).  My husband thinks it looks like a rocket ship taking off, others have seen fish or a mermaid tail.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering 

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Observatory MKAL - Clue 6 and 7 Done

Somehow I managed to skip clue 6 and went straight to clue 7 in my blog posts, so I’m updating this one to include both.  The top picture is clue 6.  This one had more of the “shooting stars”.  I picked a light amber/copper bead for these.

This is clue 7.  The biggest challenge of this clue was deciding on the beads for the final section of shooting stars.  I knew that I didn’t have enough of the light amber/copper beads that I had been using.  I ended up with some berry lined amber beads.  They have a subtler color than the others, they pick up the purple.  It will be interesting to see how this ends, as I don’t have very much of my color D left at this point.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

 

Observatory MKAL - Clue 5 Done

 

Clue 5 had more nupps, and introduced Color D, which is purple.  I replaced the nupps with beads again.  This time I placed the beads on the wrong side row, placing them on stitch and then purling the stitch.  So, on the right side row I did not do the increases to make the nupps, just knit, and then on the wrong side where I would have been purling all of those stitches that I didn’t make together to make a nupp I placed a bead and purled.

Here is a shot of most of the shawl so far.  Interesting shape, and wonderful colors.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Observatory MKAL - Clue 4 Done

I finished up clue 4 yesterday in the early evening, but couldn’t get a photo until this morning.  This was a pretty easy clue and I really enjoyed the interplay of colors between my B and C skeins.  The next clue brings in my D color, and has more nupps, which I will replace with beads.  Here is an almost full shot of the shawl so far.

The designer’s use of shape, line and color is really quite wonderful, and she is always helpful and supportive when folks are picking their colors for a project.  When she approves my choices I am always confident that I will love the resulting shawl.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering 

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

 

Observatory MKAL - Clue 3 Done

 

I did not immediately start clue 3 because clue 3 has nupps, and I don’t do nupps, so I waited until a couple of other fast knitters had knit the clue to see how they were being used in the design before I decided how I wanted to handle them.  In the end I replaced the nupps with beads, which is my standard response to nupps.  I treated the stitch as established in the design, slipping it on the right side and purling it on the wrong side.  I chose a light amber/copper bead to provide a bit of contrast and color.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering 

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Observatory MKAL - Clue 2 Done

 

I think clue 2 went faster than clue 1, mostly because there weren’t those special stitches that I added the beads to.  This clue brought in the second color, but on the wrong side instead of the right side, which created a pretty cool blending effect.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Observatory - Clue 1

 

The other Mystery Knit Along that I’m doing is by Larissa Brown.  I’ve done hers before and love how creative she is both with the design of her shawls and with her use of color.  She does not include beads (yet) in her knitting, but I went ahead and added some to mine.  This pattern takes 4 skeins of yarn and I grabbed som Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering that I had in stash.  The colors are (from left to right):  Kyanite, Moonstruck, Matrix and Ametrine.

Pattern:  Observatory MKAL by Larissa Brown

Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)