Mimosa Odysseia Final

I wanted to follow the process of this huge shawl on the blog, but the darned cord that transfers photos from my camera to my laptop was missing and turned out just today... from my husbands backbag... I have a stinky feeling that this may be the result of my quick clean-ups at my home, when I stuff things in the less likely places all around the house without giving it a second thought. Ah well, at least it was safe traveling forth and back between home and office.
As a result here follow pictured process from day 1 to day 20:


02.02 I managed to cast-on twice. That wasn't nice because 599 stitches is not nice to CO again. Not to mention that I figured my Moebius mistake out after near 5 rows - that is nearly one and half ball of yarn. And then count and count and re-count countless times. Believe me you do not want to err with that many sts on your needles.

05.02 This where the expected setback happened. I ran out of beads. I had to wait until 13th of February to get the beads (I'll write a separate post about that specific bead shop).

14.02 I just got the beads the day before and decided to spread out the shawl on 3 circulars to see how wide it was going to be. Obviously it was going to be wide (that measuring tape is 150 cm / 60 inches long).

16.02 I've injured my left hand index finger. I have a small cut that often occurs when one is knitting a lot with drying hands. If you didn't know - knitting dries hands quite a deal.

Luckily my daughter takes care of me and offered one of her band-aids to help me through my injury.

18.02 The wrap is 3/4 done, it goes much faster to knit a row, but I've been making silly mistakes, like decreasing too much or too little, or knitting into the stitch below (often happens when knitting on high speed and in stockinette stitch), I've had to rip back 10 cm (4 inches) once but usually my good friend crochet hook helps me out.

20.02 Fresh off the needles. Washing and darning in the ends are ahead.

I'm darning. I only had 22 ends. Until I decided to split the yarn and it became 44. But I got through it pretty fast.

The shawl is blocking. And it became even bigger (I have a king size bed). And then I remembered. Merino stretches - A LOT!!! So from 22 sts per 4 inches / 10 cm it fell down to 19 sts

Here it is, on the ground with two 60 inch / 150 cm measuring tapes close by to show the size.

I used app. 1200 Toho Craft square beads - they are gold lined and it gives them a darker color than they really have.

This is a closeup of the central part here panels come together.

And the last shot:


Stats
Yarn: 11 balls of Sublime Yarns Cashmere Merino Silk DK (75% extrafine merino, 20% silk, 5% cashmere; 127 yrd/116 m for 50 gr ball)
Needle: 4.5 mm
Pattern: Mimosa by Sivia Harding from Big Girl Knits
Extra: 1200 Toho Craft square beads, color 39

I used less beads: didn't insert beads in the diamonds and didn't put them on the edges as well.

Mimosa Odysseia Part Two

So, I'm into my 4th day of knitting and this is how far I've gotten:

It doesn't seem much, but believe me it is, since now i have to bead only every 4th row (instead of every second) and I've gone from 599 sts to, I am guessing, about 490 sts. With every pattern repeat I decrease 10 sts so it gets less and less daunting by the row.
But I'm awfully close to finishing beads, I have some 170 left, but they disappear real quick, I just hope I get the rest of the beads from Japan on time.
Oh, by the way, I was wrong about the amount of days I have to knit this little big monster shawl - instead of 25, I have 21 days - that includes blocking it. So I'd say I have to have it done by 20th at least.

Mimosa Odysseia

Oh, I can feel it on my fingers that this is going to be a long project. I CO yesterday 599 stitches, or that's what I thought, knit 5 rows of garter stitch, one row of 599 purl stitches, started with the edging pattern, worked through 19x26 stitches of edging and then saw that I had more stitches than needed. I started counting and discovered I had done Moebius in the middle of the first row. Argh.

I got some beads as well. I'll go back today to get some more and order the rest. I decided to go with less beads and therefore I'll need about 1000 nr 8 beads. Just I didn't imagine that they'd be so difficult to find here.

Swallowtail Shawl 2

Second full version of Swallowtail Shawl.
Yarn: Lace handspun and dyed from Uruguay
Needles: 3,75 mm 80 CM Addi Turbo
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark from Interweave Knits Fall 2006
Time: less than 4 days

I love, love, love this pattern!

Swallowtail Shawl

My Swallowtail Shawl. Knit in 15 hours, With Canetta Super Zaphir yarn (100% merino extra fine - coweb weight - used three threads at time) plus Madeira Metallic (45% polyamid and 55& metalliced thread) accopanying thread. Knit with 4 mm Addi Turbo needles.

Yes, yes those difficult yet so beautiful nupps. But it's not difficult at all if instead of p5tog you do: slip 4 purlwise, p1, psso :)

Will it be worn on the afternoon and night of 22. February? Yes? No?

***
TAST has been suffering due to this and another project. It will unfortunately suffer for at least another week. You just cannot imagine how I would like to stitch instead of knitting right now!

Kiri shawl

It is finally done. I do not suggest knitting KIRI in such fine yarn (it is 2-ply almost or maybe entirely cobweb weight lambswool) with 2,75 mm needels. It is a suicide. It took me near 1,5 months to complete it, of course I didn't knit it with one breath... I took a lot of breaths between, a lot without needles in my hands. But I am very satisfied. You can find the pattern here.
But oh it's so pretty and it goes for my awesome mother-in-law. I will do lace more.