A while ago, I was going to be in the train for a few hours and needed a project to take along. I decided to use one of the new-years dying skeins of sock weight wool for a scarf. After searching through Ravelry, a few good options were identified and I settled on the Stormy Sky Shawl by Ksenia Naidyon. It’s a shawl made with four different stripes with an increase in every right side row. With stripes a maximum of 8 rows it makes it quite easy to keep track off and with sock weight yarn, it stays portable.
Counting is still difficult though, so I resorted to putting in lifelines after every stripe, so that I could easily rip back when I made a mistake or forgot to do the right increase etc. This easy solution prevented a lot of irritation, so that was a win. I think my dropped stitch stripe is different from what they show in the pattern, but it still looks good to me, so there’s that.
This was the first time that I’ve ever blocked a knit. I was first intending to actually buy proper things for it, but then the scrooge in me decided to take some shortcuts. The dollar store nearby was selling ‘pool floor mats’ for about 8 euro for 9 mats, and they look very close to lace blocking mats. Then I started nosing around my stash of supplies and found some stiff floral wire. That seemed to be fairly similar to blocking wires from the few videos I watched on the process. So I chucked the shawl in the washing machine, then threaded the wire through the edges and pinned it down on the mats. It started being much longer than wide, but the blocking made it actually turn into a neat triangle. Such a nice transformation!
I’ve yet to wear it out, but aim to do that fairly soon. I really do hope that the shape holds up, it would be a little bit sad if it started to droop. Knitting a project with the one skein like this is really quite enjoyable and because of the lace design, you can actually get a full project from that one skein. I might now make a scarf from the second skein too…