Some knitting projects are just a dream from beginning to end. My Gramma's Hug shawl almost fell into that category. I spent a happy evening casting on and getting through the first few rows...then I hit that little patch of simple lace and everything went straight to hell.
On my second try, I used stitch markers every seven stitches and managed to keep myself on track. There's no reason I shouldn't have been able to do that lace without so much extra help, but sometimes things happen. It was like my Cathedral Window Shawl. I cast that one on while my middle son was in the NICU and I was sleep deprived and heavily medicated and the first half came out just fine. It was after he was a bit older and I didn't have any excuses that I couldn't manage to knit the same lace pattern for the second half.
Pattern: Gramma's Hug (a free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Hobby Lobby I Love This Chunky, Sand Dunes, 3 skeins
Even with the false start, it only took me five evenings from start to finish. My own shawl is narrower than the pattern specifications because I substituted acrylic which just doesn't stretch and block the same way wool does. I substitute acrylic all the time, unless it's a lace pattern that will need blocking to look right, and I've never realized that it changes the potential size so dramatically. Now I'm wondering if this particular designer blocks more aggressively than others, or if I've just never paid attention.
I used almost three skeins of I Love This Chunky from the Hobby Lobby clearance incident and it's thick and squishy and doesn't split or snag or do anything else that makes me unhappy. I wish I'd bought a ton more of it while it was $1.24 a skein but I'd never worked with it before and didn't know how much I really would love it.
In addition to loving the yarn and the color and just about everything else, I love the shaping. Instead of increasing every other row like just about every other triangular shawl I've ever knit, this one has increases every row which makes a much longer, sharper angle.
It's a beauty! Surely, now that you know you love it, there will be another sale sometime. I can't imagine, if you noticed this time that the size was different, that you wouldn't have noticed previously, so it's probably that the designer does something a little different.
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