Champagne Fir Cone Shawl

Champagne Fir Cone Triangular Shawl

Pattern:

Fir Cone Triangular Shawl by Fruitcake Knits

Size: 64 inches wide, 33 inches long at center.

Yarn:
Alpaca with a Twist by Fino in Champagne (#0098)

Needles: Addi Turbo Circular size 5.

Comments: I enjoyed knitting this shawl. The yarn is wonderful to work with and feels so soft and cuddly. It also drapes very nicely when blocked. The stitch pattern is easy to memorize and the project was incredibly portable. The whole thing fit in a tiny little purse that I took with me everywhere I went.

To get the size I have I knitted until there were 400 stitches on the needle. I decided not to knit the edging because it didn't make sense to me and I didn't want to be bothered with figuring it out (more on this in a bit). I made this for my daughters wedding, so time was of the essence!

There is a mistake in the pattern. I corrected it thusly:

Where it says

“Now for the main lace pattern that is repeated until either you are driven stark raving loony or until the shawl is finished; it’s up to you. Instructions in (parentheses) are knit once on the first repeat, three times on the second repeat, five times on the third, and so on until either you are driven stark raving loony or until the shawl is finished; sense a theme here?”

Three times should be 2 times. Five times should be 3 times. It increases one pattern repeat at a time, not two.

I frogged and reknit 3 times before I figured out I wasn’t doing something wrong, the pattern was.

Another thing that concerned me was binding off loose enough. When it comes to a shawl, lots of stretching is involved when blocking it. The bind off needs to be very loose. I did a bit of research and decided on this bind off-which worked out wonderfully.

Knit 1, *YO, pass knit stitch over the YO, Knit 1 st, pass the YO over the knit stitch. Repeat from * to end.

Now, to the edging problem I mentioned above. When I blocked my shawl I found myself quite frustrated because it would not stretch the way I thought it would.

The side edges just wouldn't stretch any more, but the top edge bunched cos it needed to be stretched more. I got 52 inches across and only 25 inches long. I was quite disappointed. It didn't drape correctly when I tried it on either. I was quite disappointed.

The next day (that would be yesterday) I was doing a bit of digging to decide on what shawl I want to make next. I came across another triangle shaped shawl that interested me. While I was reading over the pattern it suddenly occured to me that I had blocked the Fir cone wrong. I felt like such a stupid head! This is how I blocked it.

I've knit triangle shapes before and the bound off edge has always been the top edge. Not so with this one. Originally I had put the point where it should be straight, and straight where the point should be. Well, no wonder it was so weird! I have learned something new.

This is how it is supposed to be blocked. The bound off edge is the pointy part.


It's amazing how much better it looks, not to mention it's considerably larger. I got 64 inches wide and 33 inches long-like it's supposed to be. Will wonders never cease...... Oddly, when I realized I'd blocked it wrong the first time-suddenly the edging made sense to me.

You'd think after 41 years of knitting I'd stop making stupid mistakes!

A close up of the stitch pattern. It's so pretty.


Another blocked view.


Reclining in relief at being blocked properly.


All in all, I'm very very happy with this shawl.

Have a great day.