Summer of lace

It really has been a summer filled with lacy projects. Boy do I have a surprise for you since I kept this project hush-hushed, unintentionally. After I finished the Aestlight shawl, I felt inclined to pluck another shawl out of hibernation to click away at. It took all my moments of freetime during nights or their naptime when chores were mostly done-which isn't a whole lot of time-but here be the "Morning Glory" shawl. Fitting, huh, with all of this Fall weather? Boy am I ready for some cool weather (and apple cider, and nutty carmel apples, and hot pumpkin lattes, and.....eek, it never ends).

The thing about this shawl is that I had an idea about what lace would look good next to the stripes (that would also be a no-brainer, cause goodness knows we like those types of lace), but the rest sort of morphed into this sun-ray like shawl that I adore. I was mostly freestyle-ling it. I started mentally taking notes of what I was doing, pattern-wise, but it wasn't too long after that I just decided that this shawl will just be mine and "screw" the pattern. It really is much more enjoyable when you aren't worrying about getting the correct pattern down or thinking you missed jotting down an important step somewhere in the middle of the pattern.

The shawl is knit from Alpaca "FrogTree" yarn from a little knitting shop in Prairie Crossing that sadly went under I think maybe a year ago. I bought a lot of orange and several other colors thinking I would do some cool braided scarf with multiple colorings, but I vetoed the idea not long after and it has been sitting snuggly with my other stash in a bookshelf. Luckily, I almost horded the color because I really went through a lot of skeins for this size of a shawl. I think I was on my 4th ball by the end.

Remember how I mentioned that I picked a simple lace along the striping edge? Well, I really think that it helps the overall impression to being a stereotypical ray pouring from the sun. The edging on the shawl was another easy-schmeasy pattern. Really. It was almost as easy as garter stitch itself for the effect it gives. It has the same starting instructions, but because a certain yarnover, you are knitting just one more stitch after each increase row. It took nearly one minute to etch into my brain and I didn't even need the chart after that. Love it. Plus, I think I would use this edging pattern for my "Ripples" Reading Afghan as soon as that beast is done. Will we live to see that day?

PATTERN: Morning Glory Shawl by KUAS
(won't be available though)
NEEDLES: set of US5 circulars
YARN: FrogTree yarn, sportweight alpaca, in orange and yellow
Started: Oct 28th, 2009 (and put away soon after several inches)
Finished: September 14th, 2011

If you look closely, the point of the "star" on the bottom of the shawl is cabled and has a little bit of beading. It's really hard to see in the photos, but it's there. I did a little bit of crochet around the edge of the point. In retrospect, I would have done a line of eyelet holes in increasing sizes on the point of the shawl, instead of just 1 hole. Oh well. I enlisted my husband to help me block the shawl. We went through quite a lot of pins. In case you were wondering, he was happy to help, but he was happy to hurry the process up so we could get back to our HBO show.

My son Sam

My son Jake, the little "chief."

Jake blocking the shawl.

Messy style.

Hope you like it.