Finished in 2013: Germinate Shawl
Let's talk about it!
- By far the most complex thing I've ever knit in my life.
- I dragged it around everywhere for a month. It saw mountains, water, desert. California, Nevada & Oregon.
- I have one tiny bit of knitting regret with it.
- I learned a *lot*!
So it was a hard knit for me. Like, don't come near me while I'm knitting and don't text me and just basically stick me in a sound proof room. I just struggled with the lace and even stripes, it didn't come naturally or intuitively to me. I triple counted everything as I went and I had a million stitch markers. But there isn't a single mistake in the shawl, so my craziness paid off. It wasn't until the very end that it clicked and I finally "saw" what was happening with the pattern.
My most favorite feeling in the world was sitting outside with this on my lap while working on it. Seriously. I don't knit big things so having the weight of the shawl on me while knitting was so different, very relaxing and calming. Also, if I'm being honest, totally distracting. I kept wanting to smooth it out and see how the yarn was looking!
Tiny knitting regret: I wish I didn't use the Sundara yarn for the lace section. I don't know a ton about yarn bases but here goes: it's very bumpy & nubbly, sort of like ToshSock whereas Plucky is very smooth. Does that make sense? It's just a completely different texture. And it's a beautiful yarn, don't get me wrong! But it sort of distracts from the lace. After finishing and weighing my yarn, I would have had just enough of a left over skein of Plucky to use it instead, so that kind of hurts.
The size of this shawl is so perfect. I'm a bigger girl and it wraps so comfortably around me. I have a bunch of shawlettes and I'm constantly adjusting them and trying to get them just right. This one just sits beautifully. And Chop got me my lusted after shawl pin as a birthday gift! I feel like my personal taste for shawls is now "go big or go home". ;)
I'm so glad I finished this, I debated frogging it so many times because it was brutal on my hands but my IG buddies encouraged me and checked in and slightly nagged me (in a loving way of course!) and once I had it blocked, the sense of relief and pride was amazzzzingggggg.
The thing is, it's not a hard pattern. At all. And it's written perfectly. It's just me, I'm just bad at lace. But I'm so so so so so glad I tried it and did it. Seeing these photos makes me want to pull out my color affection and work on it so I can have two giant shawls this fall!
<3<3<3
PS: I wear this tshirt pretty much daily. I love a good cat tshirt always. rawr x a million!