Neutral Hug Shawl

Remember the Hobby Lobby Incident? I've used up four more skeins of yarn from that pile. 

Yarn: Yarn Bee, Alpine Authentic (Neutral)  

I used the cast on and increases from the Gramma's Hug pattern, but left out the lace bits and ended it with a wide border of k2p2 ribbing. Ribbing at the bottom of shawls may be my new favorite thing.

Gramma's Hug

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.

Licorice Allsorts Shawl

No Pattern

Yarn: Yarn Bee First Love, Too Cute 

In the skein, I absolutely loved this color combination. The more I knit the more I started to question it...then I decided that it reminded me of that pink and black candy. I don't know if I've ever eaten licorice allsorts, but that somehow doesn't stop them from being a childhood memory.

I used three skein of Yarn Bee First Love (from the Hobby Lobby incident) and did my own thing. I knew that I wanted to experiment with a center cable and slightly wider than usual borders. That part worked out and I'll definitely play with it again.

Where I ran into trouble was with the bottom edge. I knew going in that I was going to be playing yarn chicken and didn't start the garter stitch row as soon as I should have. It curls far too much and because the yarn is acrylic I'm probably going to have to live with it.

The yarn itself is very fluffy and fragile. Think Lion Brand Homespun but it's smoother and not as forgiving. Every little fingernail snag shows in the finished shawl. I also learned a valuable lesson about self striping yarns and triangular shawls. The longer the rows get, the less the stripes work. At one edge I wasn't getting any black it all.

I have three more skeins of First Love in a different colorway and I think I'll use those for a rectangular shawl.