Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Swallowtail Shawl - Lace is Addictive!


Yes, I'm definitely all about knitting lately. And while I'm also working on hats, mittens, warm scarves and potentially useful items I love knitting lace and seeing the beautiful patterns created. I think lace looks much more intimidating and complicated than it is. If you told me at the beginning of the year that I'd be making this, I never would have believed you. Once you get the hang of some tricky bits (reading lace charts, general triangle shawl construction) it's really just the same knit and purl stitches. But that doesn't mean I'm not excessively proud!!
Raveled here.

The pattern is the Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn C. Clark and is a free pattern. The yarn is a sock weight that I bought on Etsy. I was instantly mesmerized by the colors in it - definitely overall green but with some blue and dark gold in the mix also.

This was my first beaded lace project too. I used size 6 beads an the crochet hook method to get them on the yarn. Beading definitely slowed me down, but I am really pleased with how they look in the end.
Getting the beads to show up in photos is tricky!

This is definitely the kind of project that blocking wires were meant for! I got a nice straight top edge and my points are all even too.

7 comments:

  1. Wow! Jaime, that is stunning!!! I loooove the colors and the beads look so cool!

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  2. that is absolutely beautiful! What a talent you have...I can't knit to save my life!!!

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  3. Looks amazing! I too LOVE knitting lace, although you definitely try way more ambitious patterns than I do!

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  4. Absolutely glorious! Amazing how a yarn can instantly turn a project from nice to 'wow' :)

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  5. Holy smokes! Nice work! I am super into knitting right now too, and this little sucker caught my eye! Impressive!!!

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  6. Just found this when looking at Swallowtails on Ravelry, it's stunning...my most favourite colour (green) and just beautiful!

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  7. I've been recently looking at your wonderful shawl! I love the colors and just wanted to let you know how great your shawl looks!
    Greetings from Germany, Julia

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