Round and Round......

Yes, my friends, two posts in one day - and I really have been going round and round in circles - 256 times - all to construct a shawl for my daughter and her husband for their first baby due in little over three weeks.  

Here is the shawl in all it's glory - laid out on a dark blue sheet.  It was knitted in what we know as three ply wool - for those familiar with threads, it is similar in weight to two strands of pearle 5 thread.  I knitted it on size 3.25mm needles (size 3 US).  For those who are really interested in statistics, I cast off 1,848 stitches......  after six months of knitting.

Here are some other shots of it somewhat closer - this one shows the centre, which was started on double pointed needles, four to start, and then up to eight, before a 1 metre circular needle, then a 1.5 metre circular needle.


The ribbed pattern is very effective, but oh so boring by the third panel of it!!  The round outside of the petals was the most difficult to master.

This shot shows the next step, with the second round of the rib pattern.





I altered the pattern sightly on the final rib panel - if you look at the smaller round, you will see that above the point of the petal, the rib is fractionally narrower that all the others - this was a real pain when knitting as I found I was constantly missing the change and having to reverse, so in the final panel I made it the same on each (four stitch) repeat.


The shawl 'consumed' 15, 50gm balls of wool and cost more than I like to calculate to knit, by the time you add in the cost of the needles....  but I do know it will be appreciated - which makes it all worth while.  


Now to start the next one, which will be finer, for my DS and DIL!!!


Thanks for calling by and tolerating my going round in circles.