shetland, finished

It's done! And I'm in love. This is the most ambitious knitting I've done to date and I am so very happy I went on the adventure. The pictures simply do not do justice to this amazing piece. It is large and cozy. I can certainly see wrapping up in this on chilly days. 

The yarn I chose, an alpaca/wool/nylon blend, lends the shawl great weight and drape without being bulky. It's also just a little bit "gritty" if that makes sense. It's not a soft silky feel but more of a rough and tweedy hand, and I think that suits it very nicely. I would absolutely use this yarn for a shawl again as I really like the texture. 

The color is difficult to capture on camera. It's a navy with flecks of magenta/purple in it appropriately named 'blueberry'. I can remember when I bought 5 skeins of this lace weight yarn at the shop and being asked "what are you going to make with all of this tiny yarn?!" Well, I don't think the lady believed me when I told her a single Shetland shawl, but I have just under half a skein left! It just ate up yardage. 

It is fun to look at this project and remember the places it's been with me as I worked on it, especially the trip over the pond to Scotland it took. It's even more special to me having seen the cultural birthplace of this type of shawl. Though we did not specifically go to Shetland, I do see echoes of the mainland highlands in the patterns as well and that is a pretty cool connection. 

I very much enjoyed the knitting once I got going, and I'm looking forward to another project from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawl Knitting book soon. 

Pattern: Fir Cone Shawl (my Ravelry page)
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in 'blueberry mix'
Needle: US 7 (4.5 mm)
Size: 6 feet square

blocking shetland

In the big push to block all of the finished yarny things I have, I got down to the last one - the Shetland shawl. Initially my thoughts trended towards putting it off some more to avoid the back breaking work of kneeling on the floor and pricking my fingers on more pins than I thought I even owned. But I persevered because I totally want to wear this thing. 

Again, I count myself lucky that I have my craft room now. I had the floor space to put together nearly every single foam board I have into a gigantic square. That's 6 feet square. In the end once I got my blocking wires in I decided that the wave edging didn't really need the meticulous shaping I was thinking of doing and that it would be just fine using only blocking wires thank you very much (indeed this is true). 

Of course the blocking really makes this design look impressive. The lace just doesn't shine the same way all squished up. It needs the magic of water and wires to really find itself. Above is the center panel fir cone motif, and below are the inner and outer border sections followed by the wave edging. I like the geometric borders more now that I see them in context. While knitting them I have to admit I wasn't too sure how it was all going to work out, especially after knitting the fun, curvy, organic center panel. The one thing that terrified me while blocking this was wondering if I had dropped a stitch somewhere while picking up the live edges for the last border. One stretch and there goes the stitch zipping out through the shawl! I'm pretty good at fixing those types of things if I drop while knitting, but this pattern is so complex I don't think I'd be able to recover. Thankfully no stitches were dropped. Phew. 

The wave motif is quite possibly the most impressive thing about the shawl aside from the size. I'm amazed at what a few well placed decreases will do. It's a for real wave. All the way around. Whaaaat. I just ran the wires through where I thought the crest of the wave was for each repeat and called it good. I was considering lots of pins to make it rounded but then I thought of how the ladies that make actual Shetland shawls stretch them out on great big wooden stretchers and decided that they probably didn't bother worrying about that kind of shaping. Also inspired by them, I did block quite aggressively, pinning out to almost 6 feet square.

bound off at last

OMG! It’s done! Well. Except for blocking. But it’s an exciting day because I put my last stitches into the Shetland shawl I started almost 2 years ago (1 year and 10 months, to be precise).

It seemed like the border would never end, but I finally got into a rhythm and finished it with some serious marathon tennis watching. It feels good to have it off the needles and I’m so looking forward to seeing how it blocks out. It is going to take a lot of pins!

the last ball...

I'm starting on my last ball of yarn for the Shetland shawl! How exciting. I have finished one side plus a corner of the final border, just three more sides to go. 

I took advantage of the fact that I had to wind this last ball of yarn today to wind 5 other skeins for other things I've got planned. They are all tucked away in project bags now waiting for casting on. I don't think I'm going to make myself finish this before I start something new, but I do think I'll sit and make some focused progress this afternoon. The weather is rather Scottish outside today, so it feels appropriate.

do the wave

I'm on the home stretch of my Shetland shawl. It will be many rows of knit on border until I'm done, but I've got a decent start. It took me a bit of thinking to understand just how the border gets put on, but since I sat down to "just start" and did it wrong a few times it is now going along pretty smoothly. I tell myself if I can do two repeats a day (on average) then I'll be finished in a month! That's not that long at all.

This last border is really cool. The way the decreases and yarn overs work together, the pattern emerges as the crest of a wave. It even curls over on itself - so neat. Part of my issue making progress is going to be that I have to look at the pattern for this section, I haven't been able to memorize the chart yet. That means it won't be great football knitting, but it might make a good pre-bedtime meditation. I've got seven little wavelets done already, just three and a half more sides left! 

shetland in situ

Ahhh, bonny Scotland. It's been a busy month since we've been back, but boy did we have fun. The land of lochs, braes, moors, heather, and wool did not disappoint. For example, this is where we stayed on our second to last night. It is Loch Leven, near Glencoe, and it is gorgeous.

Lando and Punk Rocky Mountain paired nicely with my jumping deer dress

We started in Edinburgh and traveled a circuit that took us through Aberdeen, Speyside, and Inverness, then drove the Great Glen to Glenfinnian and Glencoe, and finally circled back around through Fort William and Glasgow to leave out of Edinburgh. As I mentioned a couple posts ago, my shetland shawl didn't make it as a finished object, but I did decide to take it with me for the flights, the occasional sleepless night (thanks jetlag), and for serendipitous moments like this one:

We didn't get to the Shetland Islands (next time!) but I am confident that the wildness of the highlands we saw is a great stand-in for the landscapes of the northern isles. It was super fun to sit by the loch and work a few rounds. Seeing the country, it's people and places, and absorbing the history has really made this particular project a special one.