FO: Echo Flower Shawl

This was one of the shawls that was made for a friend of mine. It's another one that got lost in the mail. The more I think about it, the more pissed I am with the terrible postal service we have in Canada. Postage is expensive and it's unreliable. I still don't understand why can't we get registered option for regular parcels. If we need to have it signed for we must shipped it via express. That's just stupid. 

This is one of the many projects where I'm knitting something I don't like- aka nupps. Nupps and bobbles are just something I hate making. I can't make them round enough. They just don't look even in my knitting. Some are always bigger than others. 

The yarn chosen here is a yellowish, orangish hand dyed yarn from Dream in Color. the colorway I used was butterpeeps. I bought this yarn a long time ago always wanting to find the perfect pattern for this lovely yarn. It's not the softest yarn in the market but it's just a lovely color that I wasn't willing to part with. My friend loves yellow so I chose to use this amazing yarn for her shawl. 

I would say the color in the first picture is the closest to the true color of the yarn. I made this during the winter so I couldn't take any pictures of it under natural sunlight. 

Apart from the border, the entire piece is constructed by knitting the same pattern stitch. It's the blossom stitch and the increases are made using the Estonian star stitch which I love a lot. I've made a few shawls using the same technique before namely the Laminaria shawl by Elizabeth Freeman. The main difference would be the Blossom stitch was used as the border in the Laminaria while it's used as the main stitch pattern in the Echo Flower Shawl.

I don't overblock the shawls. I don't like to over stretch the knitting. I'm not an expert in blocking as I still have problem blocking a perfectly straight base edge. I often knit full size shawls and given the knitted size I don't find the point in heavily blocking and stretching the piece when it's already big enough.

This is not super airy because of the yarn choice and needle size. Dream in Color Baby is labeled as lace weight but I find it to be a heavier lace weight or a lighter fingering weight. It's in between lace weight and fingering weight. I don't like to have super airy shawls so I often use smaller needle sizes than recommended. 

The nupps don't look so bad in the pictures but there are some that I had to use a tapestry needle and some yarn to sew them and make them rounder so they will look better in the shawl.

This is one of my all time favourite shawl pattern and I will make one for myself. I have a thing for Estonian stitches. If there are Estonian stitches in a pattern, the chances of me making it is a lot higher. 

Pattern: Echo Flower Shawl by Jenny Johnson Johnen

Yarn: Dream in Color Baby in butterpeeps

Needle size: 3.5mm

Yardage: 560 yards ( 0.8 skein)

blocked size: 135 cm X 68 cm

FO: Gail Shawl

This is a shawl that had been on my knit list for the longest time. I wanted to make this every since the pattern was released in September 2008 but I had a hard time trying to understand this pattern. I had trouble understanding the chart written by the designer. This is a free pattern so I don't complain about anything. The designer is already generous enough to provide fellow knitters with a free pattern. It's my job to figure out how to read the charts. So it annoys me when people complain about the charts not being properly written. 

I had a hard time understanding the chart because of the double yarn over in the middle. I always thought I was making a mistake as it didn't seem to line up properly with the chart. But once I talked to my friend and found help from fellow raveler, I decided to start making this shawl. It didn't take long to finish it, probably took me around a week to finish it. Once I got through the first repeat, it wasn't hard at all. There are more complicated patterns out there that required more time to make!  

The double yarn over at the base of each leaf. Different from other shawls I've made before. Most of the ones I made before all had increases in the center panal creating a straight line of increases. This shawl was a shawl made for my aunt as I promised to make her a full size shawl.

The shawl is only made up of branching out leaves as its motif. Simple yet elegant. I do love this pattern but there are other patterns that I want to make first. If I ever make this again it will probably be a last minute gift to friends and family.

The yarn used was Rowan Pure Wool 4 ply. It was yarn I received from my fellow ravelry yarn swap. It's a 100% wool fingering weight yarn. It's not a color I will ever wear so it's good for making shawls to give away! The yarn itself is very warm and it's great for cold winter nights for keeping you warm. It also felt soft enough I will purchase again in another colorway.

Pattern: Gail Shawl

Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool 4 Ply

Yardage: 696 yards

Needle: 4.5mm

FO: Liliiflora Shawlette

Who doesn't love a little lace? I love lace. I've always have a passion for lace knitting. To me lace is the prettiest thing to knit. Whenever I get to choose a project, I always choose lace. Lace patterns are always challenging, it's never boring, you're always learning new techniques to make it perfect. With all the patterns out there and with the limited time, it's always hard to choose the perfect pattern. I made this shawl for a good friend even though she NEVER received this shawl. It was one of the two shawls that were lost in the mail.Canada Post wasn't able to track it down for me. All I knew was it NEVER left the country and NEVER arrived in Hong Kong.  Don't ever let me find out who stole my parcel I'll be so pissed. 

When my friend knits lace, she always chooses mohair yarn for her projects and mohair yarn are mass produced so when I was making a shawl for her, I decided to use something different. Different fiber and I opt for hand dyed yarn which is an all time favourite of mine. Ever skein of hand dyed yarn are different which makes them unique so every shawl will be a little different. I received this yarn as part of my yarn club subscription from Tanis Fiber Arts. The colorway is Cranberry. It was a yarn club subscription yarn so I only had access to one skein and I used it on a project that my friend never received. 

From the indoor lighting in the living room you can't really tell the yarn is variegated, it looked like a boring red yarn, it was actually a semi-solid red yarn. You can only tell the reds apart in the blocking pictures.  

This is a crescent shape shawl and had open lace work throughout the main body while you use short rows shaping.  This shawl is a little different from the ones I normally make. I normally start from the middle and work my way out to the edge, but for this shawl, I started from the edging and worked my way in. This was different from all my other projects. 

close up on the border of the shawl. the border is made up of vines and nupps. I'm not a big fan of nupps knitting, I often replace them with beads as I find them time consuming but I do find that nupps are great in this project. 

blocking of the lace border.

There were a few sizes from the pattern, since I only had one skein of yarn, so I chose 15 pattern repeats. From the instruction I should have enough yarn to work 16 pattern repeats for the edge nupps and vines pattern, if I started with 16 repeats, I would never be able to finish it. I started with 15 pattern repeats and I barely had enough yarn to finish the project. I only had a few yards left. 

Pattern: Lilliflora Shawlette by Lily Go

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label Fingering Weight in Cranberry

Needle: 4.5mm

Yardage: 420 yards 

The Tines Shawl

I want to send my blessings to all the people in Japan. I'm glad to hear that all my friends and their families in Japan are safe! 

This is my latest project, just finished it over the weekend. Finished knitting on Friday, finished blocking on Saturday. Right now it's sitting in my closet becoming part of my gift stash. I might keep it, but I think I'll give it away to a friend for X'mas this year. 

This was a test knit project I was working on for Celia from Celia's Basket. Simple shawl yet you actually need to pay attention to the pattern. Making sure you do the yarn overs at the right place. I had it wrong a couple of times and had to pull it out and readjust the positions of the yarn overs to get my straight ptbl line. 

This shawl has a stockinette body and lace edge. and it uses less yarn than I expected. I used less than one skein of Misti Alpaca Lace Solid yarn. I still have about 30 yards of yarn left. It's an easy mindless project. It reminds me of the Ishbel which also has a stockinette body and lace edge. I shall make another Ishbel for myself. 

fully blocked size is 135 cm wide and 60 cm deep. which is a decent size for following the instructions for small. 

Pattern: The Tines Shawl By Celia's basket

Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace Solids

Yardage: 428 yards

needle: 4mm

flower shawl

This has to be one of my favourite finished projects because it's my first Japanese knitting pattern. It won't be the last. Never thought I could manage knitting a Japanese pattern without anyone to help me. Saw the store sample at a Chinese mall in Toronto and I instantly fell in love with it. The yarn the store model used was a 100% merino yarn with glittery threads. They also changed the cast off edge into a nice ruffled edge. It just looks special as I've never made any shawls like this before. All the shawls I've knitted have airy lacy edges. This is just a change for me. 

This is a pattern designed by Hitomi Shida for Couture Knits 11: Elegance knits エレガンスなニット. You gotta love all the lovely designs from Hitomi Shida. However, with my current skills, I don't think I can knit one of her sweater patterns. 


As this is a Japanese pattern, I chose to use Japanese yarn with this pattern. I've used Nikke Victor Subtle yarn for this project. I've used 8.5 balls of yarn for the actual shawl, and another 2.5 for crocheting the ruffled edge. 

close up on the flower motif.

lace edge chart and ruffled edge

Pattern: Flower shawl by Hitomi Shida

Yarn: Nikke Victor Subtle

Yardage: 1232 yards 

Needle size: 4.5mm