The Lady of the Lake - Finished!

I finished the shawl up last night, powering through the other half in four days. Here is a picture of the shawl on the blocking mats.

And for contrast, here is the original Once and Future King, which provided the inspiration.  Lady of the Lake is knit from the center out instead of from the border in, I also modified the diamond motifs somewhat - simplifying them.  The design definitely shows up better in the darker yarn.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - One Side Done!

I finished up chart 7 Tuesday evening and jumped right into the knit on border without getting a picture first.  I switched to the fourth skein for the border because I had to string the dagger beads.  I finished up the border on Thursday evening and joined skein 2 to start working the first side again, starting where I had left off - row 10 of chart 4.  I've been working steadily to finish up the first side and am about half-way through chart 6.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 5 Side 2 Done

I'm focusing pretty exclusively on this pattern right now, because I want to get it finished.  I know if I start another lace project I'll get distracted.  I've spotted a couple of things that I would change if I knit this again, which I might.  I have a solid skein of Velvet Teal in Eos in my stash that I had bought for this pattern before The Unique Sheep came out with their Sea Silk.  I have two more body charts and then the border to finish this side.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 4 Side 2 Done

When I first started working this I was working on both sides in alternation.  It didn't take me long to get tired of juggling two cakes of yarn so I knit to the end of one of the cakes (row 9 of chart 4), which became my side one, and then put the project down for a while.  When I picked it back up I continued working on what I had labeled side 2, finishing up chart 3 (my last post) and then continuing with chart 4 (this post).  I've started the second skein of the set, but I wound it into two (almost) equal cakes.  I will continue working this side until I am done with it and then I will return to side one and finish it.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 3 Done

I put this project down after finishing up one side through the end of the skein (which was 9 rows in to Chart 4) and getting the other side about 3/4 of the way through Chart 3.  Before I even did that work I redid my charts to get a stronger diagonal line from my ssks and k2togs.  When I was knitting Chart 3 I discovered that if you want a strong line of decreases put the yarn over after the k2togs and before the ssks.  I had them the other way around and that accentuates the yarn overs and breaks up the diagonal line of the decreases.

In the interim I've completed two projects that I started before this one (Hurricane Watch Myndie and my Charivari Shrug) and cast on and completed 14 other projects (Turkey Trot Kallara, Arctic Flow Capelet, JB Craftvent 2017, Tea Party Celadon, Nature's Gem Celadon, Adventurous Wrap, Wizard of Oz, Compassion Celadon, Xanthe, Saltwater Taffy Myndie, Violet Valentine, Bright & Bold, Mrs. Watson, and Wonder Woman Wrap).  Wow, I guess I've been pretty productive.  But now I think it is time to go back to this one and get it finished.

In the time between the start of this shawl and today a completely new version of knitCompanion was released.  I have the new version (dubbed NextGen) downloaded and have started working with it, and am actually using it to knit this shawl.  It is very different from what they are now calling Legacy and I wasn't sure I was going to like it - the interface is completely different and not as intuitive to me (and I suspect folks of my generation), but I'm getting used to it.  I have had to resort to the user's guide (thank goodness they have one!).  Cropping charts is definitely better, and I have more screen real estate for displaying my charts, so that is also a win.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 2 Done

I spent some time yesterday afternoon working chart 2 in both directions.  I am taking my time with this one, and not working on it when I'm tired or distracted.  I also use my Ott work light, to make sure I don't missing any stitch loops, especially when working those k3 together through the back loop stitches.  I really like working with the Sea Silk.  It seems to have a softer hand than the Marici Lace or the Ling.  Just handling the piece to take this picture makes me want to work on it, it feels so good.  The next chart is 38 rows, and on my knitCompanion screen it just seems to be nothing but k3tog tbls.  Yikes!  This one was only 18 rows.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 1 Done

Back in the summer of 2015, The Unique Sheep Mystery Knit Along shawl was The Once and Future King, by Janine Le Cras, of course.  That shawl was worked from the ends to the center in two pieces that were then grafted together.  It was my first time grafting lace, and there were several comments on the forum threads about reversing the charts and knitting from the center out.  Of course I had to have a go at that.  Being one of the test knitters I had access to all of the charts and I sat down over the course of a few weeks and reversed them all, and then tweaked them a bit to make the pattern more visually distinct.  I am an inveterate pattern tweaker.  I even ordered some yarn to make the shawl in, a skein of Eos in Velvet Teal, and picked up some clear iridescent beads from my sister at the Bead and Button show, but I never cast on.

Then, this past summer, The Unique Sheep offered Sea Silk as a yarn base for this past summer's Mystery Knit Along and I picked some up in the Goddess colorway.  Can you see a woman's arm, in glistening chain mail rising up from the waters of the lake holding Excaliber?

And so, having finally finished my Goldwing and Kimba shawls I have at last cast on, over two years later.  I did a magic figure 8 cast on using two 24" US 3 needles.  After caking the first skein I weighed it and then wound off half to another cake, but I did not cut the yarn.  The original pattern only had a single row of the rosettes, but I decided to do two.  It just makes it easy to work each chart twice.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  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.