This is Icarus #2 for me. This one, like the last is also a gift, ( I will one day make one for myself). I'm also using HPY lace wt again. I really like there yarn!!! I'm on the 2nd repeat of chart 1. I need to have this finished by the end of the month.

Congrats to Carrie (aka YarnMagnet) for a beautiful finished Icarus! Check it out at her blog.

Here's a bit of Icarus progress. I'm onto chart 3 now.

I'm sure it's obvious, but I'm on a bit of a lace knitting binge at the moment. I feel like lace knitting (and any small needle knitting, it it comes to that) is real value for money. Plus, I enjoy it. Most recently, I bought some yarn for the Icarus Shawl featured in the Summer 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. The pattern's by the most talented Miriam Felton. She's also selling copies of the pattern on her web site.



The yarn is Suri Elegance (in Cordovan) which I bought from Alpaca Yarn company (this is the yarn recommended in the pattern). It's beautifully soft, with a lovely, rich color. The thing that I'm most excited about in this shawl, though, is the curvilinear effect in the edging. It's not particularly obvious in the magazine pictures, and I'm not sure it will be obvious with this particular yarn (although I'll know it's there, which is really all that counts). It's pretty clear in some of Miriam's photos, though. I love it when something as simple as knitting produces something as striking as this.

Edited to add (6 Dec 2006): Miriam has some errata posted on her weblog.

Cross-posted on What Katie Did.

why does it tease me so?

Just when I thought I had finished the first repeat of Chart 1, I find a mistake. Two mistakes. Three. And I Can't Fix It by laddering!!!

One of my new sets of increases only has 7. Another has the appropriate 8. But two others are stuck with 6 even after doing an extra row...

I am going to to have to frog back about 5 or 6 rows at least. *sigh*

Hi. I have finally finished my shawl. Well, I finished it last week, but I haven't posted the pics in my blog until now. So, please, have a look. I have really enjoyed it: I mean, both knitting and belonging to this, my first KAL (and, I am sure, neither one will be my last).

Carrie, of www.yarnmagnet.blogspot.com, is having some issues with blogger. But she's finished the first repeat of Chart 1. Check out her blog for more!

Icarus -- nearly done with Chart 1.



I've been making lots of progress on my Icarus, & since I'm making it the size of a large scarf, I'm nearly done with Chart 1. In fact, I would be done with Chart 1 already, except that I was zipping along without the pattern in front of me & forgot that the final set of Chart 1 ends early. So I thought I was already done with Chart 1, but then when I went to check the pattern to start Chart 2, I realized that I would either need to frog back several rows, or knit a bit more before starting Chart 2. I decided I'd rather knit the 16 more rows instead of trying to frog back 8 rows. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough yarn for the extra rows without any trouble, since I've used less than half what I have of this yarn.

I expect to start Chart 2 this weekend, though, & I'm really looking forward to it.

Hola KALsters!

It's been many months since Icarus was published, and things have slowed down around here a bit, but there are new KALsters trickling in every week. So, keep posting! :)

I just got an email from Miriam Felton. She says:

I've got a couple bits of news that might be worth a post, but since I'm not part of the KAL, I can't post them. I have discovered some errors from my original intent on the 4th chart of the pattern and in the final border rows. I posted about it in this post. They're bolded, but they're in the modifications section of the FO specs.

Also, I will be offering the Icarus shawl as a stand-alone pattern shortly. I understand that it's getting more difficult to find copies of the magazine.

If you're currently knitting or planning to start, head over to Miriam's blog and check out the corrections. And if you're searching for a copy of the pattern, keep an eye on her blog too.

Thanks folks,

Lynn (aka froggy_dear)

So I thought I'd bring Icarus along with us yesterday when we went to take DH/DP to his echocardiogram which is at a hospital 2 hrs away from us normally even with congestion. You can stop laughing now. We were driving through that there and back.

I had to wait until dawn before I could read the chart clearly enough to start knitting Icarus. As soon as it did get light enough for me to read it, I started to work while DH drove like a man possessed to keep us safe. We diverted south for a bit and took a secondary bridge over just to avoid the Port Mann cause it was backed up to at least 208 if not further east. We got him to Lions Gate just before 9am. His appointment was for 8am and normally, two hours is enough time for us to get there even if we have to divert around congestion. We had left at 6 am.

Then, when I go to drive off, I reach up to adjust the rear view mirror and the frelling thing breaks off. The glue failed!

So, here I am, driving around the North Shore, looking for the nearest dealership - which I never find - without a rear view, feeling oh-so-blind, with three kids in the back seats, praying I don't get hit because we had left our insurance papers for the van at home in Dh's other jacket.

I finally take the kids to Capilano Mall, drag out the wagon to pull DD around, stick D2 in my sling and spend the next half hour to hour praying I don't run over DS with the wagon because he's doing the "jump over the handle, slid under the handle" game in Walmart. I buy some yarn, grab some extra money, and then head to "go bananas" to wait for DH to show up.

Sometime after 11, he finally shows. He thinks they may have spotted something on his echo cause of the talk between the teacher and trainee.

Anyway, from there, I showed him the broken off mirror and DH rolls his eyes. We head from there to our doctor's office in Caulfield, buy a reprint of our insurance papers just-to-be-safe and I buy a replacement map for the van and we head to Horseshoebay to see if our friend is there cause his phone was dead and we wanted to hole up somewhere for a bit. I suggested a couple of alternative friends too, but noooo... the kids want to see that one. We drive past the line of cars trying to get on the 99 north and into HSB, right into our friend's parking lot and lo and behold, not only is the power out, so is our friend. His car is GONE.

So we head back east. As soon as we hit the highway, the radio says (love News1130!!!) to stay off the no 1 between Abbotsford and West Vancouver cause of fallen trees. Guess which highway we're on? Yup.

We stay on it, slipping into the HOV lane for the trip back, and at 176, we decide to take a secondary route. We see that our gas guage is getting low - I had suggested filling up or at least putting more in earlier. We had to divert along our diversion route twice because of blocked roads. I'm glad we had a map with us!

In Abbotsford, we fueled up and I made sure we had a full tank.

Took us easily four hours to get home. And I'm glad I got that reprint of our insurance just in case. It kept us from getting in an accident! Lights were out all over the place. Trees were done. There were several places where we saw instead of the highways crews removing the trees, they had just chainsawed off the worst of it to get the traffic moving again. We saw one car had been hit by a tree, several accidents, and even a consumer trailer tossed to the side like a toy. At least the small truck towing it hadn't flipped. There was also reports all over the place of more insanity and accidents. Places were flooded too.

So I knit there and knit back and pumped milk on the road for D2. DS fed her, the good boy. We were home shortly after 5pm. By 8pm, I was out cold cause I didn't get much sleep the night before either. To top it off, Icarus had driven me nuts cause I had made a mistake and couldn't figure out where I had done it. I had put it down because the drive back was too dark to knit following a graph and I couldn't see it either. At home, I had to frog back 4 sets of rows (knit and purl) to fix a mistake I had made! At least I was able to quickly do that once safe at home. DH said that my knitting was keeping me calm which had helped him keep calm for that trip back.

I think I'm going to make an emergency knitting kit for the car, just in case wew were to get stuck on a day like yesterday...

I've invented a cool trick to speed up knitting the SSK's on the spine section of Icarus. It's working quite well for me. For details, please see my blog. I knit Continental, & this trick may be helpful to other Continental knitters as well, so I thought I would share.

Well now...

My little reason for not doing icarus for the last (almost) 6 weeks is growing like a weed. Romana is cute, cuddly, and a mommy's girl. DH has an echocardiogram or something in the morning (its currently o dark early, or late) and I've found my iky and have put it on a set of straight needles (Clover woods) in order to work on it today. 3-4 hrs in the car and at least an hour of waiting around (hopefully with 3 tuckered out kids) and I should be able to get some knitting in, right? I have socks, a baby hat for a girlfriend based on a pattern I made, and icarus with me so I won't be bored. Romana's Ruffles is the name I gave the baby hat. I'm currently fighting mastitis and am on my second set of antibiotics. Until I'm off them, DH isn't wanting me to do much other than sit and nurse and maybe knit. At least he hasn't hidden my needles.

Time for me to try to get some sleep. Ha. right. Baby induced insomnia... Well, I do need some sleep...

I finally started Icarus yesterday. I have contemplated several yarns while thinking of doing this shawl, but ended up using a completely different from my birthday stash. I decided that a fingering weight mohair blend that my mother bought me is the perfect color for feathers. I'm making a smaller version of Icarus to use in place of a scarf with one of my winter coats.

Double posts! Argh! First blogspot gave me errors & said it couldn't find my post, & then when I redid it, blogspot published it twice!

So I'm going to use the extra post to say how much I am enjoying this pattern so far. Chart 1 is easy to learn, which makes it good take-along or KIP knitting. Yay!

I finally fnished my Icarus! I've posted pictures on my blog.
This took longer than almost any other lace shawl I've knit, I think. I began it back in July, but I got tired of all the Chart 1 repeats, so it got put aside for a little while.
In the end, I skipped the last repeat of Chart 1, because I thought I was going to run out of yarn. I used Misti Baby Alpaca, in black.
I'm really happy with the shawl the way it is, and it's still a good size, 77cm (30.5") down the centre back, and 155cm (62") across the wingspan.
Thanks, Miriam!

Third repeat on Chart 1 completed. This is pretty boring to knit so far, I hope the end makes it all worth it.

I have to admit that I could take or leave the actual knitting, I just love the knitting community!



Doris

Hi, everyone there. My Icarus has just taken off and it's doing well, I think. It is my first lace shawl and my first KAL as well. I am so envious of those who have their shawls finished! I expect to have mine for Christmas or so. I am using Rich Earth lace wool from handpaintedyarn. I began it on monday and, yesterday I did some more knitting after everyone had gone to sleep. I got so involved that when I realized it was 3:00 in the morning. I have been feeling very sleepy throughout the day. I might just go to bed now. G'd knit.



PS: I have made a sheet where I keep track of my Icarus' progress. If it helps you, you can find the pdf-file in my blog.

I have one and a half repeats of Chart 1 to go! I have been trying to do about one repeat of Chart 1 a week, with this project going along on the backburner. I hope to power through the other charts after doodling along for so long.















I hope to finish by Christmas!

Ok, it's not much to look at, but I have finally started Icarus in Misti Alpaca laceweight. The colour is a gorgeous sage green, and it's just so soft!

So far, I have gone from this:


To this:


And yes, those balls were wound by hand!

I'm Finished!







I used Handpaintedyarn.com Merino Lace yarn and size 4 needles. This was my first lace shawl and first go at lace blocking. I was impatient and put a fan on it full blast and had it dry in just a few hours.
Luckily the weather has just gotten cool enough to wear it. Yay!

Has anyone here joined a Swallowtail Shawl knitalong or started the pattern?

Icarus on hold

I'm putting Icarus away for at least a month. I have a good reason...


She made her appearance on Friday at 1:35pm PST after two hours of labour. She was 8lbs 5oz and had all the required bits. We don't have a name yet. That'll come soon.

I'm recovering. Parts that are supposed to be sore still are. Others are getting used to being used again. Big Brother and Big Sister are adjusting. The grandpas have been passing out pink bubble gum cigars. :)

2nd repeat on chart 1 done!

Hello everyone! I am brand new to this site. I just started knitting my Icarus this week, this is my first lace project and my first shawl that I have done. This is also the first KAL I have ever done. Here's some pictures of my progress so far, I am in the middle of the second repeat of the rows 19-42 repeats of chart 1. I am using Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in Iris.

Day 4



Day 2



Day 1

The Giant Icarus is finally finished! Previously, I wrestled with blocking it or leaving it unblocked. The beautiful feathers still appeared, but were not as defined as the other shown shawls. However, the yarn's texture encouraged no blocking. So I decided to hand wash the shawl and drape it with minimal shaping to dry. It was the perfect solution, and I have the photos to prove it!

I LUVLUVLUV how it turned out! Sorry, but I just cannot contain the excitement I had when I photographed the shawl on my favorite walking path. =:8

Hi everyone! My name is Becki and I'm just starting on Icarus. I finished Seraphim a couple of weeks ago and didn't really think I wanted to do any more shawl-knitting for a while...but then...the yarn I had earmarked to someday use for Icarus was just too pretty to wait.


It's Alpaca Cloud from Knitpicks, in the Iris color.

Also, on account of me being a Latin teacher, the name "Icarus" alone made this pattern irresistible! :-) My goal is to have Icarus finished by the time my AP Latin class starts reading "Daedalus & Icarus" this year. Should be a very manageable goal since we don't even start on Ovid till the spring semester! But hey, I can always use additional visual aids in class, right?

This is the first KAL I've joined, so I look forward to seeing everyone's progress and sharing my own. And now, I'll leave you with a parting picture of my progress so far:

Progress - graphs are okay..

I have the first Icarus graph as a photocopy beside me and I'm marking off lines as I do them. I'm now on chart 1, row 12 and I'm finding this cotton a dream to work with unlike the Alpaca I had. I only have the one chart copied at the moment and when I finish the first repeat, I'm going to get a second one and continue to do that in order to keep where I am straight. I got lost the first time through with the Alpaca and just about went nuts trying to figure out where I was, or wasn't. This way, I can destroy the graph, but keep my original pattern nice and locked away in my desk drawer. I've also enlarged the graph pattern so I won't need a magnifyer to read it.

I really should just concentrate on no-think-ums for the next while, but Icarus is bugging me. It wants to be made. So I'm going to work on it.

Icarus - restart?

I had put Icarus away because right now all I need for projects are no-think-ums. Baby hats, baby booties, a filet afghan that I also finished. The baby is due any time from now till 3 weeks from now.

My grandma who tried to teach me how to knit died this past month too, so no-think-ums were definately on the menu for knitting. And someone, I lost the pm telling me who, from Knitters' Review sent me a small care parcel of Jaeger Siena mercantized cotton. I have more than enough to make Icarus out of it instead of the alpaca that has been driving me batty. The card said to make my daughters matching sweaters, but I'd rather make something they could curl up in. The filet afghan finally got my Irish Diamond Shawl out of DD's hands, but she still uses it whenever she can.

So, I'm in the process of frogging Icarus so I can restart it for the umpteeth time in cotton. It is a beautiful pale purple/lavendar colour that I adore. And it should go faster too. But I won't really be concentrating on it until a few months after Bitty's born. Which means I'll be able to save the Alpaca for something feltable.

I am so giddy. Yarn. What a wonderful present!

Finished!!!

Icarus is finished and oh, so lovely. It turned out better than I ever dreamed. This is definitely the loveliest thing I have ever knit. And, of course, it has whetted my appetite to knit more lace. Thanks so much, Miriam, for the beautiful design.
Specs:
Icarus Shawl from IK, designed my Miriam Felton
yarn: Shadow lace yarn from Knitpicks in Oregon Coast color-2 and 1/2 skeins
needles: size 4 Inox gray
finished size after blocking: 74"x41"

So... with three and a half rows and the bind off left, I ran out of yarn. For those that are curious - 650 yards is NOT enough, even if you cut out one repeat, to knit this shawl. It may be possible on a 2 instead of a 3 needle, but I doubt it. (And your shawl would not be lacy.) I love it, but now.. I must wait. Wait for Wendy to finish her shawl (haha! I'll be waiting what? one day? two days?) and hope she has enough Alchemy left (and is still willing to part with it) so that I can finish mine. Because I will RIP THE WHOLE THING OUT before I order $27 worth of yarn (including shipping) for THREE FREAKIN' ROWS. (BTW, I know I should have known. But the insult still stings.)

This Icarus is a bit unusual compared to everyone else's shawls. Because its recipient will be (literally) climbing either Mt. Everest or a nearby mountain, I decided to use Catalina's Alpaca worsted weight with my aluminum Inox US9 circulars. When I ran out of yarn for the last 2 rows of Chart 4 and could not get another hank, I decided to use a different yarn (similar to the colorway) altogether. Here is the result of Rasha's Icarus. I enjoyed knitting this project, but must admit that if I had to knit it in laceweight instead of the light worsted, I would get bored with Chart 1. I loved how the BO looked, and will be incorporating that technique in other patterns. This shawl was already huge unblocked! Please note the DVD case included for scale. I had displayed it at the Boston Knit-out and Crochet Too! event this past Sunday.

Yarn (MC): 3 hanks of Catalina's Alpaca Worsted in NY55 colorway, 200m/100g
Yarn (CC): 1 hank of Berocco's Ultra Alpaca, 200m/100g
Needles: aluminum Inox US9 for Catalina, aluminum Inox US10.5 for Berocco
Time spent: just at 2 weeks
Notes: I did one repeat of Chart 1, but if I had not, only the 3 alpaca hanks were needed. My careful calculations hint that my heavier version of this shawl would be a good substitute to knit instead of a Clapotis for the same amount of yarn. I will be confirming this theory with either TC's New Tweed or Horstia's Silk/Wool yarns.
=:8

We are motoring along.. Chugga chugga!

UPDATE .... I won first prize in the knitting section and managed to take out the supreme needlework item .. very nice suprise .
The judges were taken by the pattern and the drape of the shawl ... so from a very hpapy knitter ..Thank you Miriam for the beautiful pattern!!

Finished and unblocked .......boy did the binding off take a lot of wool . I used about 1 and 1/2- 2/3 of the 2nd handpainted yarn skein Blocked and beautiful .. so nice that I ''ve entered her in our local show (a little ol' dear with her crochet needle and 12 ply will beat me , but who cares ..I just want the world to admire her !)
I enjoyed this KAL and it gave me the 'ummph' to keep going and not abandon the knitting ..so thanks to you all .
After the weekend I'll post a proper picture .
l

Finished the first repeat on Chart 1. Yah!

I am new to the KAL and I say hello to everyone!!

I casted-on last week, and after many loving things said to my lifeline, I am back on track and about halfway through Chart 1. Hopefully, I will be able to get Chart 1 done tonight and start my repeats.

I am using Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in Periwinkle on #6 needles. I am glad that I swatched b/c mine would have been quite small if I would have done it on #3 needles. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

I've only got 6 rows in chart 3 and chart 4 left to go. I have to admit, I'm getting tired of it! I cut out a repeat in chart 1, since I only had two hanks of the haiku, but I think I will be okay in terms of yarn. If not, Wendy agreed to let me have her leftovers from her Wings of the Moth shawl (since her colors are featured in my colorway as well.) let's hope I'm okay, I saw that the harlot needed almost 3!

This is a very special post.



This is the 200th post! Wow. This KAL really took flight. You all have been really great. Some are attempting their first lace (still love that buttton, Kate), others are seasoned knitters who saw something special in Miriam's pattern. It's been lovely to see how supportive this little community has been. I thank you for that.

And we're still adding new members almost every week (usually more often than that)! (and apologies to those who send me an email and don't hear back for several days - I seem to fall chronically behind. No worries though, you're not forgotten.) Even if you've finished your Icarus Shawl, I encourage you to check back in from time to time and see the progress of the other KALsters.

Happy Knitting.

My Icarus is finished! Here she is on the blocking board:

There are more pictures on my blog. The yarn is Alpaca Silk from Webs and I added beads. I really love this shawl.

Aloha everybody! Tons of encouragement and empathy! Did you see this yet? Scroll down to about halfway and see a great photo shoot of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Yarn Harlot) and Miriam Felton (our beloved Icarus designer)with Stephanie's newly completed Icarus Shawl. Beautiful!

How do we get the beautiful Icarus KAL button??

Has anyone seen a KAL for the Equinox Yoke Sweater (Interweave Fall '06)?

Spent the weekend knitting 10 rows and then frogging 10 rows. Does anyone put their lifelines every 5 rows or so or maybe every other row, or is that totally insane? No one told me how %^$* hard it is to fix lace.

Can I ask a not-icarus question of the bloggers on this knit along?

Any suggestions for an easy, possibly online, pattern for a poncho for a little girl? I'm going to use Malabrigo in this crazy pink. Looked really bright to me, but the lady at the yarn store in St. Paul assured me that it was right for a little girl.

83 stitches remain on the needle.

12 inches of yarn remain.

I should be in tears but I saw this coming.
I frogged my my swatch just before the center stitch and tied it on. But that wasn't enough.

Project: Icarus

Designer: Miriam Felton

Yarn: KnitPicks 100% wool, laceweight, dyed with Mandarin Orange and Pink Lemonade Koolaid at various dilutions, 850 yds.

Needle: size 4 24" Inox circular

Size before blocking: 49" wide by 28" long

After blocking: 59" wide by 39" long

Done! Dropping it off at the yoga studio one day before the auction and benefit.

This was a nice project to participate in - hope to see you at another knit along sometime.

I need advice! I've finished the Chart #1 section as written (I think it's chart #1 - the one before the 'real' lace work), and was planning on doing an extra repeat, just to be on the safe side. I've never knit lace before, and I have no idea how much it will really block out once I get it off the needles. So I measured - right now, the center line measures about 17 inches and each side is about 22 inches when I pull on the yarn a little...

I've read (in the Yarn Harlot book) that a shawl should be about the size of your 'wingspan' - and I am not 44 inches tall. Any thoughts on this from y'all? Thanks!

My Icarus is done! Photos and details here. I can't seem to get Blogger to republish the photos on the KAL site, so I'll just leave the link! Three cheers for being finished! Hip hip, horray!!!

I finished binding off last night at about 10 p.m.

But I waited until this morning to lay Icarus out and photograph it pre-blocking.

That's because I found an open, bright pink highlighter at the bottom of my knitting bag yesterday, which had bled all over my pattern. I was amazed and relieved that the shawl hadn't been touched.

And because the cat chewed through my yarn while pretending to pose in front of it, while I was taking a picture the other night.

So, released this morning, here is Icarus, pre-blocking.

And a picture of the yarn left. Not much, but enough to finish the shawl without having to find another yarn to coordinate with the handdyed Pink Lemonade and Orange Mandarin Koolaid colors.

On to Chart 4!!!
Yesterday I finished Chart 3 and today it's chart 4, then the edging and cast off. I am seeing light at the end of this gorgeous tunnel. I have become so comfortable with the pattern and chart reading in general that I really hate to see it end. But Miriam has other shawl patterns I can't wait to start.
Sue J.

Thanks for all the advice on my previous entry. Of course I posted my entry and immediately went ahead and just fudged everything myself without realizing that I could just drop that one stitch and have everything be OK.

I see from my photo and your suggestions and I totally understand how to correct it now, but I'm not sure exactly what I did, but I didn't frog and I ended up with the right number of stitches and it ended up not too shabby.

So I made it to the end of chart 1 once and I put in another lifeline. I can see how this shawl can get huge fast! I'm already starting to notice the rows getting longer and longer. It's quite an easy repeat, I'm just wondering if any of you experienced lacers can do this while reading or watching TV? I can understand doing stockinette or a sock or something, but lace?

Doris

Last row done. Ready to bind off.

And yes, it is very early, but I couldn't sleep and thought that it would be great to have this off the needles by the time I leave for work.

Chart 4!!!!!

Finally!!!!

I had like the curse of chart two. I could never get past the third row on chart two. And now, I am starting chart 4 tomorrow. I put Icarus down for a bit to work on some diaper covers and soakers to sell (need some money!!).

I'm soo excited, I will be done with this soon. Pictures tomorrow as it is entirely too late to take them now.

I'm on row 1 of the edging. I decided to do a few knit front and backs to add stitches to the borders and center so that I could skip the last few rows of Chart 4.

It's rainy and dark here today. Hope you're having some sun in your part of the world.

As soon as I wrote my last post all optimistic and hopeful, I accidentally did a lace row on the wrong side. I'm so good at jinxing myself. So I tinked back carefully and somehow I got 2 strands on a YO.



I think if I had become a knitter when I was 16 and believed that perfection and control was attainable in all areas of life, I would have ripped back to my dental floss lifeline and started over.

Since I'm twice that age now and I believe I have practically no control over the bulk of things that occupy my world now, I just looked at the double strand and carried on.

Is it better to go on or go back? I have such a struggle with this question in real life (as opposed to my knitting life (?!?)) as well.. I want to set high expectations, but I don't want them to be so high that feel like a freaking failure everyday of my life.

Doris

I complained about my inability to get past row 11. I had to frog at least 6 times, but I think I'm in a groove now. I can recognize all the YO and the K2TOG and SSKs and it's all going smoothly. Chugg, chugg, chugging along.

I usually am able to do a few rows during the day and also for about 15 minutes before going to bed, but sometimes snuggling with the hubby wins out over Icarus Shawl and the rows never get done.

Eunny wrote a nice entry - go to the bottom and you'll see how she manages to get so much knitting done. I so want to be a knitter who knits while reading, walking, humming, waiting, but I'm not that experienced or coordinated. Maybe if I actually finished something more often than once every fortmonth.



Dental floss as lifeline.

Doris

Hooray! I finished!



I used Alpaca with a Twist Fino for most of the body. And I LOVE IT. I had been contemplating gifting it, but I don't think I could now. I have some more pictures and talk at my other blog.

I'm onto row 5 of Chart 4, and could use some kind words about light at the end of the tunnel, and so forth.

I need to have this finished and blocked by next Friday, at the latest, so that I can come through with my promise of a hand-knitted, hand-dyed lace shawl for a silent auction for a fundraiser.

No pressure.

It is good to see all the pictures of the beautiful, completed Icaruses.

Hey KALsters!

We've been mentioned in the latest edition of Knit News, the email newsletter from Interweave Knits!

If you've just found us through Knit News, welcome. If you're interested in signing up, you can find out how by clicking here.

Thanks for visiting, and happy knitting.

Finished! Blocked! But warning to y'all: Leave enough yarn for a loose loose bind off! I ran out of yarn in the middle of a tight bind off, then finished up with an even tighter crochet-style bind off. As you may be able to see, the points didn't block out and I have more of a scalloped edge. Oh well, it's still soft and pretty and light as air.
I used three skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Haze, every inch. I used size 5 needles instead of size 3 needles. And I only did three repeats of chart one instead of the five repeats called for in the pattern.
More here on my blog.
Thank you all for the inspiration, ideas, fabulous photos, and great advice.

You've got to be kidding me.



This is Icarus. Icarus in Row 2 of the edging instructions. Icarus running out of yarn.

Sure, I only had 875 yards to begin with. Sure, I went up a needle size. But I wasn't supposed to run out of yarn. *pout*

Okay, in reality, it's not so bad. I'll do the next two rows and the bind off in some pale blue alpaca laceweight.

I think that should be nice, don't you?

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Sorry to you new KALsters whose information still isn't in the sidebar, and to those of you who have finished but haven't been noted in the sidebar. This will be remedied soon.

Hi Everyone, my name is Doris and I've just started this shawl. It's going to be my first "serious" lace project. I have to say that I've started over about 4 times because by the time I reach row 11 in Chart 1, there is usually a mistake. Hmm, I hope that some folks have some tips for fixing lace since I hope to get past row 11 someday and somehow I can't imagine frogging back all the way to the beginning. Anyhow, nice to meet all of you and hope to have some nice progress soon to show everyone.

almost done with chart three!!!!!!!!


I see the light at the end of the tunnel. After frogging the beginging of chart 2 like 9e8r983983989384 times, finally some progress. The rows seriously take me like 15 minutes to do now, but almost done!

Knitting Math and The Intrepid Knitter

I sat and looked at my shawl.
I recounted stitches.
I weighed the ball again,
I read the pattern over.

Nothing changed.

The math doesn't lie. There isn't enough yarn to finish.

So what's an intrepid knitter to do? I'm altering the pattern. If I dismiss knitting rows 1-8 of Chart Four the feathers may line up close enough to make it work. This requires some tweeking with increases but it should leave me enough yarn. I've used just over a gram per row in the last few rows.

So instead of 24+ rows remaining I'd have 16+ rows. My yarn ball weighs 24 grams. I also have a swatch that weighs 2 grams. If it comes down to the last row - I can frog the swatch.

Hopefully I'll have pictures up of the shawl soon. We're having technical issues with the digital camera.

Hey hey. Guess what I learned last week?

I learned to count to 7!

See what happened next?




Icarus got her (his?) first set of feather ends. Here's a closer look


As you may recall, I've decided to make this more of a feathered cape look than have just one set of feather ends....

She'd be even bigger had I not then started the next tier of feathers offset by half a feather width. Oops. I WANTED them offeset, but wound up knitting them even.

duh.

And may I say how much I LOVE this yarn which is showing ZERO signs of wear despite repeated trips to the frog pond? I am so psyched!

My Icarus is off the needles. Note I didn't say it was finished, just off the needles. I began experiencing acute pain in my forearm while knitting on Icarus and finally decided that it was time to swallow my knitterly pride and admit defeat.
After completing chart 3, rather than proceeding to chart 4, I did a row of yarn over, knit two together (to mimic the eyelet across the top edge) and then two rows of plain knit. I ran a scrap yarn through all the live stitches and slipped them off the needle. I am now in the process of adding a knit-on lace edging to the live stitches along the bottom. This edging should give the shawl a finished look (if you didn't read the pattern and know better!) and give my poor arm a break. I wish I had the fortitude to stick it out for all of Icarus. This is a gorgeous pattern. My modified Icarus will still be lovely, however, and I am looking forward to it's completion.
See more of my work on Icarus and other knitting endeavors on my knit blog.