Saturday, February 20, 2010

Knitting a Shawl


After taking a short break from knitting (like 4 days) and clearing my head of all the projects I wanted to knit, I've started on the Colonnade Shawl. I had visions of using the Classic Elite Waterlily yarn in rose and blue, but the blue yarn is on backorder. Which means that it may not arrive. I've checked my LYS and no one has this yarn in stock. What a shame. This yarn is a winner and I've read many reviews that it knits up beautifully and washes well.

I've found another yarn to use. It's Plymouth Royal Llama Silk. What a beautiful yarn. The colors are rich and it's soft in my hands. Thankfully, I have one of the colors in my stash...the wine/purple color that I will be using for the contrast color or the open lace pattern. Yesterday, I was visiting my LYS in Haymarket and came across a bright raspberry color which I'm using for the main color.

My gauge is slightly off and so my version of the shawl will be slightly smaller in width. This is fine as I'm a petite person and would prefer not to be lost in a huge shawl. This yarn is worsted weight and I can already tell that the shawl will drape nicely. I've read a few reviews of this yarn and I understand it blooms nicely after the first hand wash and actually gets softer. Nice!

As you can see, I couldn't wait to cast on:




The main Raspberry color used for knitting the base of the shawl



This wine/purple yarn was actually a shrug in the works last year. I ended up frogging the shrug and re-winding the yarn, thinking it could be used for something much nicer. I was right.

The contrast Wine/Purple color will be used for knitting the open lace pattern



Here's a link to the pattern: Colonnade Shawl

Here's some pictures of different ways to wear this shawl:

Colonnade by Stephen West for Knitty.com (photo by Jilian Chapman)



Colonnade by Stephen West for Knitty.com (photo by Jilian Chapman)



So far, this is becoming a quick knit. Of course, I many more rows (increases) to go and I haven't begun the lace pattern. I plan on knitting a few more rows in the main color and possible in the lace pattern. This will be a decision I will make on the fly.

1 comment:

Trina said...

It looks really good so far, I think the two-tone will look great!