06 June 2011

Race to make a wedding shawl part 3: my poor hands...



WOOOOOO!  Shawl is complete, bar weaving in ends and blocking, which I will do tonight.  I had a mammoth session yesterday, at least 8 hours.  This is how my hands felt at the end of it:


I haven't gotten to this stage without drama.  I was feeling very chuffed with myself when I wound the first skein of this yarn into a ball.  But I've since learned that a self-wound centre-pull ball is probably not the best idea for lace weight yarn.  Is this general knowledge?  I feel like such an idiot.  Even with some 8ply I had wound with a ball winder sometimes clumps would come out and get a bit tangled.  But this yarn, oh the knots, oh the agony! 

Also, how did I not know about russian joins?  That's one to try out next time.  Especially as I got my yarn discounted for having a few knots in it.

Also also, I've made LOTS of mistakes.  And due to the time frame, there was no frogging unless absolutely necessary.  My most common mistkes included not enough dcs in a shell, or too many, totally not doing to ch5, or doing 2 ch 5 spaces.  My BIGGEST mistake was putting my stitch marker in the wrong place, so the spine was not actually in the centre for a few rows.  Again, I didn't frog, but just righted it as I continued.  Hopefully all of this is unnoticeable to the untrained eye!

So the last bit of progress last week:

Measuring 17 inches as of Wednesday night.
 


And, after finishing at 1am (Monday).
Terrible blackberry pictures sorry.  I will have some REALLY pretty ones of it blocked and finished soon!

I can't believe I did it.  Those last rows, the edging, took me ages.  A combination of being a bit over it, having crippled hands and the LOOOOONNNNNGGGG rows. 

I might take a break from lace crochet for a while.  Or just make sure my next lace project is within a more manageable time frame :)  I have more than 2 skeins of this yarn left. I didn't even use a whole skein!  I thought that was kinda odd, I hope it blocks out big enough. 

Remnants of the one skein I used.
Pictures of the finished product coming soon!!

0 comments:

Post a Comment