Cashmere Love

What's on my needles (week 103)

Miya Shawl by Mari Chiba

 

One of the gifts I received over the holidays was this pattern and yarn. <3
The yarn is 100% Cashmere in a lace weight.  The finished shawl feels incredibly light, airy and soft.
I named my shawl "Cashmere Love", because part of the lace looks like a string of hearts.

The pattern takes a little more concentration than the last pattern I worked up (the Ethereal Shawl), but is fairly easy to work up with a little focus.
Here are some yarns I would suggest if you wanted to knit this shawl in a lace weight:  The Reywa Bloom which is a Yak Down and Silk blend or the Isager which is 100% Alpaca.  Both yarns come in skeins which give you enough yardage to complete your shawl.
I want to add that I think the shawl would also look gorgeous in a slightly heavier yarn.  A friend of mine is planning on knitting the shawl in a Madeline Tosh Light.  I even go as far as saying that it would be pretty neat in a Sport or worsted weight yarn. 

The pattern is available on line for $5.50.
Here is a link to the pattern:  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/miya-shawl
And here are my notes I posted on ravelry:  http://ravel.me/Strickliese/ms2

"The yarn is a joy to work with and the pattern is fairly easy. I am looking forward to the finished shawl; it will feel scrumptious to wear around my neck.
2.23. Less than a week of knitting and I am half done! Yeah!!
2.27. Finished! The lace sections took a little more concentration, but that’s worth it with this pretty lace edge. BTW Did anyone else notice that looking at the lace upside down some of it definitely looks heart shaped <3 <3
One thing which helped me to keep track of my rows and sections was to count the middle stitches where the increases and decreases happen.
Section 1 1st pattern increase (7), 2nd (13), 3rd (19), 4th (25) total 28+25+3=56
Section 2: 1st (28), 2nd (31), 3rd (34), 4th (37), 5th (40), 6th (43), 7th (46), 8th (49), 9th (52) total 83
Section 3 four pattern repeats with no increases
Section 4 :1st (49), 2nd (46), 3rd (43), 4th (40), 5th (37), 6th (34), 7th (31), 8th (28), 9th (25) total 56
Section 5: 1st(19), 2nd (13), 3rd (7), 4th (1) take out second marker on row 9 total 32
I also marked rows 3, 7 and 11 in the chart to work YO, k2tog (rows circled blue) and rows 1,5 and 9 to work YO, k2tog, k2tog (rows circled pink) in the appropriate sections.
It helped to remember which rows to do the increases and decreases in.

 About the yarn: I was happy to see that I had enough yarn to finish the shawl and I even had some left over."

My Diamonds in the Sky Shawl

What's on my needles (week 101)

I finished knitting the shawl I was working on during my vacation.  It came out really pretty!!!

The pattern is a free pattern by Skacel :  http://www.skacelknitting.com/Lace-Ball-100-Ethereal-Wrap/

The yarn I used is Cascade Heritage Wave color Plume :)

Here are some of my pattern notes:

Notes

Lately I have been using a lot of BIG , WIDE, rectangular shawls. I totally fell in love with the pattern when I saw it in the Skacel vol. 8 2015/2016 booklet. The Cascade Wave with its long color run seems a good match and I was drawn to the gradient blue/ grey color scheme.
Since the yarn is heavier 200g for the 874 yards (two balls), and as I am a tight knitter I am using a needle size 6. The yarn is a little bit “splitty”, but not too bad so far.
I have to read more carefully before plunging into knitting! I misread row 9 and did “YO, k2tog ” all across the row, basically repeating row 5…I am going to restart over :(
Please note:  The repeats in the written instructions don’t match up the repeats in the chart.
Also in the chart for the middle sections of the beginning and ending borders, it should say “8 stitch repeat” NOT “6 stitch repeat”.
There is also a small errata to the numbering of the stitches in the Chart 2- Center Body& Borders. The left border should start with 64,65,66 etc (66 is missing and the left border is 20sts, the right border 21 sts and seven 6 stitch repeats in the center (21+6x7+20=83)
Just to be on the safe side in case my calculations were incorrect, I put in a lifeline before starting the last pattern repeat and upper border. I had used one skein for a little over 14 repeats and took out several yards of yarn on the second skein so I would finish with the blue color.
I did have enough to finish this with 28 pattern repeats for the center section.
About the yarn:  I wound the first skein blue to grey and the second skein grey to blue. After finishing I notice that the colors don’t repeat exactly the same way in each ball of yarn, much like the crazy Zauberball by Schoppel. I kind of like it even better this way rather than having an exact mirror image.

At 22" x80" the shawl is so big that I pinned down half of the shawl for blocking first

then I pinned down the second half on top of it.