AuburnChick's Adventures

Y’all, despite the craziness of my life of late, I have managed to complete another knitting project!

I present to you my Sunshower Shawl (also known as the City Tweed Dropped-Stitch Shawl).

I saw this pattern while shopping for new needles on the Knit Picks website and fell in love immediately. The link for the pattern is here.

First of all, can we take a moment to appreciate the color, which reminded me of my favorite Cornflower Blue from my childhood crayon box? So pretty!!

I also loved the dropped stitches that were clearly evident in the picture on Knit Picks’s website. Swoon!

Oh, and that fringe got me too, although I was not looking forward to making it. Fringe is a pain in the rear end to make.

The yarn, CotLin Reflections, was an absolute dream to work with. I’m not usually a fan of knitting with cotton, and I was concerned that my finished project wouldn’t look as nicely as the one on the website.

My worries were for naught; I could see the drape early on, pre-blocking. The blocking made it even better though.

I wound up using only 1.25 skeins – roughly 310 yards. The shawl can be made as large or as small as needed. I used size 8 needles, a perfect choice that kept the stitches loose.

Now, I’ve got to tell you something about the pattern. I always research the heck out of a pattern before I start it. I want to see if people encountered any problems, how much yarn it took, and the needle sizes people used. When I was confident about this particular shawl pattern, I printed it and ran with it.

Things went well until I was almost finished. I noticed something strange. You see, for the first half, you’re increasing stitches. The second half requires you to decrease. This is how you create the shaping. Well, since I’ve been knitting since 2006, I’ve learned a thing or two, and things just didn’t look right. Something in the pattern had bothered me – just didn’t seem right – but I had plodded on despite checking online. Well, after the shape looked so strange near the end, I dug deeper into my research.

That’s when I found a BIG mistake. I guess somehow, I had downloaded an OLD copy of the pattern. I found a link for a pattern download and compared notes. The second copy had corrected the mistake, which would fix, once I took out HALF of the shawl and reknit it, the mistake.

Sigh.

By then, I had the pattern memorized, so I flew through it.

I had to do more research about how to make the fringe, which involved unraveling part of the project. I chronicled my progress on Instagram – hence the comments on the photos.

What fun! I couldn’t believe how easy it was, and the fringe involved NO cutting or measuring to keep things even.

When I blocked the shawl, I pulled each string in the fringe to straighten it. The result was worth the effort.

This is going to be the perfect summer shawl – not too heavy but just right for a breezy evening.

Filed under: Knitting | Tagged: CotLin, Knit Picks, Knitting, Sunshower Shawl |