A Story About a Shawl continued...

As you know from my post in April - A Story About a Shawl, and more recently in June, I was working on a shawl for my sister and an afghan for my newphew.  Well I'm happy to report that I finished them both and sent them off right before I left on vacation with blessings of healing from my girlfriend's prayer circle.

While on vacation, I called to verify that my sister received the package and I was given wonderful news, my nephew completed his treatment and is cancer free!  He will have to be monitored and go in for testing every month for the next year, but the doctors are optimistic. Children are a blessing and so resilient, I'm happy he's made it through this obstacle and pray that he never has to go through it again.  And my sister loved her shawl and the afghan and thanked me for sending them to her. I was just happy I was able to do something, even this small thing to bring a little hope and healing to my sister and her family.

Finished Sidewalk Shawl by Kimberly K. McAlindin

Finished Popcorn Granny Squares Afghan

After the success of my first shawl, I decided I wanted to try my hand at a knitted shawl and reading charts.  So I searched and searched, hoping to find a shawl that had a simple chart to follow.  Well, I can tell you, there really aren't any, at least none that I found.  The charts all looked so intimidating, but I wasn't giving up.

After much searching, I finally found one on Ravelry, that I thought would be easy to manage, called the Calais Shawl by Judy Marples.  Well here is the results:

Beginning stages of shawl

Close-up of beginning of shawl

Here it is after blocking. I used Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton
in a beautiful deep wine color

Looks slightly pinkish against my blue couch, but it is the same shawl!

A closer look!

Once I read completely through Judy's instructions and started, I completely immersed myself into the rhythm of the pattern and before long I had myself a stunning shawl!  It was much easier than I thought and I am excited about trying my hand at another shawl, now that I understand the charts better.

Hope everyone had a safe and wonderful 4th of July.  I also hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far! I know I am!

A Story About A Shawl

I started knitting a beaded shawl early last spring for one of my sisters for her birthday (which is in August), because she mentioned to me in passing how much she loved some of the shawls she seen in the stores, but didn't want to pay the exorbitant prices for any of them.  So I searched for a nice pattern that I thought would be easy to follow, but I found reading the chart was not as easy I thought it would be. Somewhere in the very beginning stages I lost a stitch, so I set it aside thinking I would at some point get back to it and fix my mistake.  But I got so busy with other projects that I had deadlines and people waiting for them.  And I never got back around to fixing the lost stitch and well her birthday came and went and I was forced to buy a gift card instead of surprising her with a handmade shawl. Even worse, now a whole year has gone by and my sister's shawl hasn't progressed past what you see below:
 

Beaded Knit Shawl (Swallowtail Lace Shawl
by Evelyn Clark) that I  started last year

As part of my New Year's decision to try to work through my WIP's and as suggested by: stitch.tac.sew, who said on January 24th... "I would alternate for each new project you make finish an old one!" to my post of "Delving into my WIP's Goodie Bag".  I pulled it out of my WIP's bag and decided, instead of trying to fix the lost stitch and figure out how to read what I considered a complicated chart, I would frog it (pull it apart), and look for an easier pattern to follow. I don't want to give up on this design completely, because it is very beautiful and I really need to get over my anxiety of reading charts, maybe after some practice with easier chart designs, I will give it another go.

But in the meantime, I found this really great crochet pattern that I figured I could whip up in no time.

Frogged the first attempt - changed to a crochet design,
Sidewalk Shawl by Kimberly K. McAlindin

And as you can see above that it is coming along and has this really great pattern going that reminds me of a pineapple.  It's quick and easy to follow and I can't wait until I'm done and can send it off to my sister.  I'm really hoping she will like it. And this time around I will get it done before her birthday. 

I like it so much I might even make one for myself or maybe for my other sister who also, has a birthday in August.  If I'm industrious enough, I could probably pull it off, if I don't get sidetracked again.  We'll see...

On a side note:

I just finished another baby set and I had so much fun knitting it for a good friend.  I decided a sweater was too much since she needed it by May 1st and it will probably be too warm for a sweater by the time the baby is born, so I searched Lion Brand's website and came across this cutie:

The Bunny Blanket Buddy
from Lion Brand.

I paired her with another Feather and Fan Baby Bonnet, and Ballerina Booties. You can check my Sweaters page (very last picture at the bottom of page) for links to the patterns for both the bonnet and booties.