Lilac Alpaca Shawl - Design F307

I've been meaning to re-create some of the shawls I made way back in the early days for some time now, partly because I loved them and partly because until I do I cannot possibly price them correctly.  Back then I never timed how long things took to make nor did I price them to take into consideration labour, time, skill, materials, listing fees, commission fees, transaction fees...

So, the time has come to make another shawl in the same design as the very first one that I sold, way back before I opened my store on Etsy.  This one is an old Danish Pattern called Påfuglehale, which means Peacock's Tail, and was originally made as a doily or table covering but has long since been translated into English and there are patterns freely available in the public domain for full circle, 3/4 circle and semi-circle.  This shawl is made using the 3/4 circle pattern.

My first attempt at making this design was a nightmare.  I made so many mistakes and had to undo large amounts so many times that I almost threw it in the bin but then I decided to push on and get on with it as it was pretty much my first attempt at making anything so big and so lacy.  I am a little nervous in attempting this design again given my problems last time but I have a lot more experience with lace knitting now so I have to bite the bullet, its too pretty not to ever make it again.

I have chosen to make it from a skein of lilac pure baby alpaca that I bought back in 2011 from The Storm Child, an indie dyer and seller of yarns, who seem to have since closed down.  The yarn is lace weight and has approx 800m per 100g and is absolutely beautiful, see the photos below.

I started this project on 13th February, no it wasn't a Friday, it was a Monday.  Two hours of work and I have already completed 32 rows, there are 125sts, I've inserted a lifeline and have my Russian dolly stitch markers in play to help keep track of the lace design and I will know immediately if something is not right.  I did have my moments with this design where I kept making silly mistakes, some swearing went on but I persevered to complete it.  There were so many stitches that I couldn't even get good photos of the pattern or open it out to check to make sure I hadn't gone wrong.  I had to trust in myself and keep knitting.  Despite its size and how many stitches there are it is incredibly lightweight and so warm too.

During the making of this I had school half term to contend with and so no work was done on this for a while but as soon as they were back to school I got back on with it but each row was taking 45 minutes to an hour to complete and it seemed like I would never get to the end as each row had more than 600 stitches on it.

The cast off edge to this shawl is a fancy crochet cast off.  What this means is that you still have the stitches on the knitting needles but you are now using the loop of the first stitch with a crochet hook, making crochet chains and then crocheting the stitches off the knitting needles.  It gives a beautiful scalloped edge to the shawl but it does take a long time to do.  My only wish is that I had timed this cast off row, I didn't, but my guess would be around 3 or 4 hours.  I finished making this the first week of March.

The finished shawl used up just under 700m of the 800m in the skein, weighs about 86g and is so fine that it fits through my K sized wedding ring.

You can read about my first attempts at making this shawl here.