Wavelettes Shawl - Finished!

I was really at a loss as to how to get a good photo of this shawl.  It has been wrapped around my dress maker dummy all week, but that just made it look like the dummy was a mummy, a well-dressed mummy, but a mummy nonetheless.  Then I thought about laying it out on the floor, but it is pretty big, so getting all of it in one shot is hard.  Finally I came up with this arrangement.  You can see the colors and the textures, which is what I wanted.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wavelettes Shawl - Blocking

I did a pretty relaxed blocking job, soaking the shawl and then just smoothing it out on the blocking mats without pinning it.  I did check to see that both sides were the same length, but not much more than that.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wavelettes Shawl - Body charts done on second half

When I went to pick up the provisional cast-on I remembered why I don't like these kinds of patterns.  I ended up doing two rows of stockinette stitch before starting the body chart for the second half, and on the first pattern row I did some improvised fudging to get the lace pattern to line up as best I could.  If I were to do this again, I would do a row of purl stitches after the provisional cast on and before starting the lace chart.  I think that would make starting the second half a lot easier.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wavelettes Shawl - Half Done

With Catkin finished, mostly, I picked up my Wavelettes Shawl again.  I haven't worked on this for a month but I really want to get some projects finished.  Once I finish this, I'm going to finish the Meris cardigan and then I'm going to do the Open Eye Tunic.  With the furlough starting this week, I'll have some extra knitting time.  After the four repeats of the border chart I ended up with 20 grams of skein 6 left.  I used all of skeins 4 and 5.  Now I'll start with skein 3.  I'll use up all of skeins 3 and 2.  Whatever I have left of skein 1 will join skein 6 in my stash of Pashmi remains that I have accumulated from the Crochet Block Club to become additional blocks.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wavelettes Shawl - Body Repeats done on first half

Last night I finished up the 14th repeat of the body chart.  I've been weighing my yarn after each repeat and I have a spreadsheet where I can easily calculate how many repeats I can get with the yarn I have.  I played around for a little while with doing more repeats of the body chart than the pattern called for but decided that if I have extra yarn I will do extra repeats of the border chart.  The nice thing about the border chart is that I can do half of it if I want to, so right now I am planning on doing 5.5 repeats of the border chart, which would give me the most efficient usage of my yarn, while minimizing the risk of running out on the bind off.

14 repeats of the body chart used 86 grams of yarn.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wavelettes Shawl - one skein gone and 9 repeats of the body chart

I have been working steadily on my Wavelettes Shawl this week, doing a repeat or two of the body chart each evening.  The chart is a simple one and I quickly memorized it.  I've used up all of skein 4 and started skein 5.  Based upon my yarn usage I'm going to be able to do 17 repeats of the body chart instead of the 14 called for in the pattern.  I want to use as much of my yarn as possible.  I really love the colors and Pashmi is so wonderful to work with.  This is the first time that I've knitted with it and it is going to make a warm and snuggly shawl.  I've ordered some Pashmi in Doctor Blue to knit a shawl for a friend and I know she is going to love it.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wavelettes Shawl

Janine le Cras has had a couple of patterns published in some of the major venues recently.  This pattern was published in Twist Collective, an online magazine that is one of my favorites.  I always buy several patterns from each issue.  The Spring 2013 issue came out while we were working on the Treasure Island Mystery Knit Along so some of us decided to do this shawl as a knit along while waiting for the next Unique Sheep Mystery Knit Along - Watership Down (as if we need any more projects).  Janine mentioned that she thought the shawl would be lovely in Pashmi and I thought it would look lovely in pastels so I picked the colorway above - White Queen's Castle.  I've been wanting to do something in this colorway for a while now.

The shawl is knit from the center out starting with a provisional cast on and at first I was going to knit it symmetrically, starting with the pink and working to the green.  Yesterday I wound the first skein into a ball and did a swatch, and while I was working with the yarn I decided that I wanted to knit it asymmetrically.  I am starting with skein 4 and will work the first half with skeins 4, 5 and 6 (in that order), then pick up the stitches from the provisional cast on using skein 3 and work the second half with skeins 3, 2 and 1 (in that order).  After deciding my course of action, I unraveled my swatch and used it to create the crochet chain for the provisional cast on.  Aren't the colors lovely?

Because I am not using the recommended yarn, and the 6 skein shawl set only comes with 1200 yards, I don't have the same amount of yarn that the pattern calls for.  Fortunately it is easy to adjust the pattern by doing fewer repeats of the body chart.  Before beginning I weighed my ball of yarn - 52 grams.  After working one repeat of the body chart I weighed my ball again - 44 grams.  So one repeat, for me, took 8 grams.  I then set up a spreadsheet to calculate how many stitches per gram I was getting and try to get an estimate for the yarn usage of the border chart.  I had to do some adjusting because the body chart has slipped stitches, which reduces the amount of yarn used.  I ended up coming up with 16 grams as an estimated yarn usage for one repeat of the border chart.

It them occurred to me this morning that I should wind all of my skeins into balls and weigh them as there is usually some variation in weight between skeins and I wanted to maximize my usage of the yarn.  It turns out that for my set, the skeins all weigh the same, so I don't have to do anything fancy, like use part of skein 3 for the first half of the shawl.  Based upon my calculations I am going to do 11 repeats of the body chart on each half (as opposed to the 12 called for in the pattern) and the 4 repeats of the body chart.

Pattern:  Wavelettes Shawl by Janine le Cras published in Twist Collective Spring 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Pashmi in White Queen's Castle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)