I started this Sunday Market Shawl this past spring, with Wexford Silk Merino from Three Irish Girls, in I'm Just A Girl.
I was at Torchsong in June. I paid for priority seating, along with the caberet. Sadly, John Barrowman broke his ankle and couldn't attend. Instead, he did a two way video link so he could do Q&As and still see us from his office in Wales and we could see him on a big screen.
I brought my knitting with me since I was sitting alone and I like having something to concentrate on while I listen. My assigned seat was on the far end of the row, just behind the microphone where con attendees went to ask the Torchwood actors questions and such.
John came on, and was chatty and friendly and having a great time talking with the people lined up next to me asking him questions. Then, about ten minutes in, he stopped the next person and said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I have to ask. Is that lady knitting?! What are you making, honey?" I froze, looked up at the giant screen of him leaning towards the camera, squinting at me. I finally was able to tell him that it was a shawl, and held it up. "That looks great!" he said. "See, I am paying attention!"
Yes, he was, and he made my day, weekend, month, summer! I never would have felt comfortable getting in line, but I didn't have to - he initiated the interaction! Thanks, John. :)
So, this was renamed from Summer Nights Shawl to The Oh Holy Hell John Barrowman Noticed Me And Asked Me About My Project Shawl. ;)
It was pretty simple - first row, k2 yo all the way across, then knit straight stockinette. Last row, drop the yos and unravel them down to create the ladders. It jumped from about 44x8 to 66x12 after that - seriously impressive.
I did have an hour of fear when, trying to bind off as loosely as possible per the directions, my stitches came off the needle and I couldn't tell which were accidentally dropped and which were purposely so! It was awful...an hour of frantically catching them all and figuring out which belonged where and how to pick them up from several rows down, etc. I did manage it, though, although something got twisted in the bind off row, creating my only error of the piece. (Of course something had to happen - my knitting is always imperfectly perfect!) The unraveling itself was a blast. It took about another hour, and the immediate change of dense, thick stockinette to loose, drapey, big stitches was amazing. See?
I wore it the day after I finished (knit in Pleasant Prairie during a Doctor Who marathon with Meg) to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, as pictured. It was a delight - I could wear it as a shawl, scarf, hood or shrug to stay warm. However, as you can see, I had a problem that many others encountered with this pattern - half of it has stayed laddered (the bind off edge, where I started dropping) and the other half lost the ladders and just looks like loose stockinette. Hmm. A knitty friend from work recommended blocking it and picking apart the ladders, as they do still exist in there. I'm worried what that will do to the perfect length of this, though. Must decide what to do about it, if anything.
The yarn is a silk/wool blend, in shades of blue and purple. It's soft and gorgeous and lovely. Definitely recommended.
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