Peach lace shawl - Design F307

This shawl has been modified from a very old Peacock's Tail doily design.  The yarn that I used came to me with no labels so I don't know exactly what it is but after doing various tests on it I have ascertained that it is a man-made fibre, most probably acrylic.

I began knitting this shawl on 2nd February, messed it up big time after about 26 rows and ripped it out and started again.  Whilst knitting this shawl I learned how to do a "Russian Join", which is a way of joining the ends of two balls of yarn together to form a seamless, almost undetectable strong join with no ends to sew in as it is hard to hide yarn ends in a lace pattern.

This is the first time that I have knit anything so fine and lacy and I've really struggled with the pattern, making no ends of mistakes that have had to be undone and redone many times over.  When I finished knitting it on 18th February 2010 it looked like a bumpy crumply mess and I was wondering how to block the scalloped edge.  I was looking around the house for ideas, anything that could make shaping easier and then I spied a bunch of long cable ties.  Perfect.  Strong, bendy, waterproof and not being used for anything.  There weren't quite enough of the long black ones so I asked hubby if he had anymore and he found me a few shorter white ones, which were just long enough for the job.  The cable ties are now a permanent part of my blocking tools kit.  Two straight metal blocking rods were used for the front edges of the shawl.

The transformation is amazing.

Red/blue shawl - Design B144

When I saw the pattern for this shawl I fell in love with it.  The photographs were beautiful and the shawl looked like it had wonderful drape.  I used the same yarn as recommended in the pattern, Rowan Linen Print in shade Crush.  Rowan Linen Print is a bulky chainette yarn and is 70% Rayon/30% Linen.

I began this knitting project on 26th August and finished it on 27th August 2009.  It was an easy knit, the pattern was simple and the yarn was soft.  I was so happy with it when I finished knitting and got on with the soaking and blocking and that is when disaster struck.  During the soaking process lots of dye leaked out of the yarn, not unheard of especially with blues and reds shades of yarn, but it did change the colour of the yarn quite a bit.  I pinned it out to open up the lace stitches and left it to dry out of direct sunlight or any kind of heat source.  When I unpinned it when it was dry I was so disappointed.  It was very stiff and rough feeling.  Instantly thinking that I had not washed all of the soap out I redone the whole soak and block process again, omitting any soap, it leaked even more dye and it still dried stiff and rough, like a towel that has been washed with no fabric conditioner.  For the high price of the yarn, I was not very happy.  Rowan discontinued production of the yarn shortly afterwards.