Sunday 21 October 2012

one skein challenge revealed

Yesterday at the monthly meeting of our chapter of the Knitters’ Guild of NSW, we had a display of items knitted for the One Skein Challenge – what can be knitted with 100g of yarn or less? Here is a detail of my knitting:2012 one skein challenge Swallowtail for Sharon detail
Some of you who are members of Ravelry or who read a lot of knitting blogs may recognise this as the Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark (a free pattern on Ravelry). I deviated from the written pattern by not adding the nupps (a type of small bobble) in the Lily of the Valley pattern (the denser knitting towards the edges of the shawl) and by adding an extra five repeats of the Budding Lace pattern to the body of the shawl.

I knitted it Misti Alpaca – 100% baby alpaca in a hand-painted, lace-weight yarn. It's the first time I've knitted with alpaca and I was a little surprised at its fuzziness. It is very light and very soft. It’s hard to see the colour in my photos but it’s a blend of charcoal and denim-blue. The Misti Alpaca website (from where I copied this photo) says the colorway  is “Ashes”.

When I finished knitting the shawl, I was very disappointed about how small it was but I forgot to allow for the magic of blocking. It is 140cm (4ft 8in) across the top and therefore quite a nice size now!
2012 one skein challenge Swallowtail for Sharon
And I still have 48g of the 100g I started with!

16 comments:

  1. looks lovely. I have just finished one of these as well. I had thought it would be a little larger when blocked, but still a lovely shawl.

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  2. so it didn't even take a full 100g! Well that's fabulous. Probably would have used more if you'd done the nupps but they're absolutely not vital are they? The pattern is gorgeous without them.

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  3. A desreving winning entry. Nice shape and colour and SOFT! WM

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  4. Absolutely beautiful....I love the soft color and lace effect of the stitches. Super job.

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  5. Stellar knitting-blocking is really the magic of lace knitting! I can't believe you even have a little left over!

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  6. It is so lovely! And only 52g of yarn used! Amazing, really!

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  7. That's beautiful, I don't know that my shawl will open up nearly as much when it's blocked but hopefully It will

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  8. It's gorgeous Lynne, well done! Gotta love the alpaca with the high length of yarn to low weight of yarn factor :-)

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  9. Oh my gosh...that is unbelievably beautiful. You are so talented!!

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  10. Absolutely beautiful, Lynne! You are one talented knitter! Awesome!!!!

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  11. Just beautiful. I love that lacy pattern.

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  12. Beautiful. No you have to go out somewhere nice for dinner and wear it:)

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  13. That is some of the most delicate and exquisite knitting I have ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous.

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