Monday 19 January 2009

May I Present.....

The Crown Prince of Greenwich - officially my first successfully finished project of 2009!

The pattern is the Crown Prince Square Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia (I do like this book). There is an error in one of the charts though so do check the errata on the Interweave site if you are going to knit this one.

When I initially looked at the pattern I thought it might be a dull knit as there is so much repetition -- apart from the edging the pattern is just two motifs repeated over and over again.

How wrong I was. I loved this nupp laden knitting. It held my interest and I was never bored.

Not even when I had to rip back 20 rows in the main body.

It was the usual story. I spotted a mistake about 3 rows after making it but managed to convince myself it wasn't 'too noticeable' and 'could be fixed by blocking'.

10 rows later I wasn't quite as sure but thought - maybe blocking and some needle magic will fix it. 20 rows later I knew I was kidding myself.

I attempted to drop just the affected stitches and repair -- but as you can see from these photos that left some VERY loose stitches. Attempts to take up the slackness in surrounding stitches failed -- nupps are not so easily manipulated!!!

So, I bit the bullet and pulled the needles out and ripped back the full 20 rows.

Sigh.

I don't really mind frogging but I do wish I wouldn't delude myself for QUITE so long.




After that it was smooth sailing.


I knit the shawl with Jaggerspun Zephyr in a cream colour -- mostly because I had enough of that in the stash! I used two full skeins for the body of the shawl, and 30 gms of a third skein for the edging.

The pattern as designed as the edging cast on and knit separately in two pieces and then stitched to the body.

I really couldn't face the idea of that, so I wimped out and picked up stitches all around the body (in the same ratio that the pattern uses for attaching the edging to the body) and knit it in the 'modern' (as Nancy Bush calls it) way. I used a very simple 12 stitch repeat edging, not too dissimilar to the pattern edging but without the nupps -- because you can have too much of a good thing!

The shawl was knit on 3.75mm needles.

Unblocked size 35"x35".
Blocked size 53"x 53".

23 comments:

Gale Bulkley said...

Gorgeous work. Don't you just hate that kidding yourself thing?

BadCatDesigns said...

GORGEOUS!! I laughed when I saw the tangle of threads where you tried to drop back to fix something. I love nupps too, but they are a drag to make fixes through, eh? I think that piece is my favorite from the book, so thanks for the heads-up about the errata. I'll go print them and slip them in my book!

Anonymous said...

That is stunning! It turned out really beautifully.

old lady said...

WOW!!! Lovely finish. Wear it in the best of health!

Agnes said...

::speechless::

Shelly Kang said...

That's beautiful. I've got the book and have been hankering to make a shawl from it - you're giving me more motivation!

Vicki said...

Outstanding! You inspire me to pick back up my lapsed Crown Prince, too.

fleegle said...

Stunning! Magnifient! Gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely gorgeous! I always enjoy looking at your beautiful creations.

Opal said...

that's just gorgeous! i can't get over how much yarn it took! totally worth it though. :)

Teri said...

It is so awesome. I feel like such a slacker. But I just don't knit fast. I'm sorry that you had to rip back. I am good at deluding myself for too long to.

Anonymous said...

That's just stunning.

And kudos to you for being able to drop back all those rows and still pick them up again. Wow.

Laritza said...

Oh my! Lovely!

Unknown said...

Oh
My
Gasp
Incredibly beautiful
Awesome
Magnificent
Words fail

stringplay said...

Oh, wow! This is absolutely beautiful. What a lovely, lovely piece.

LittleBerry said...

Stunning..... far more patience than I have and done so quickly as well...

Really nice to have you back on a regular basis...

Angelika said...

Amazing. I love your shawl. I haven't even had time to attemp anything from that book. I would have probably ripped back too.

Lacefreak said...

It's beautiful! Congratulations on it :-) I had to rip back too and I tried to delude myself as well. I'm almost done with the center and will have to decide on an edge as well. Yours looks terrific.

Linda said...

OMG .... that fixing bit made me feel sick!! It is a beautiful shawl, beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!! Stunning. All of your FO's are amazing to me.

Batty said...

That's stunning! The "repair" picture had me shaking under the desk, though... eeeep!

florencemary said...

Gadzooks, it's absolutely beautiful!

I'm afraid that the minute I find a mistake (even if I've made it way back), then I have to frog back. I just know that I can't cope with a bodge.

Clarex

meredith said...

Help, Is an easy way to unravel a row and pick up the stitches? I just started again- for the 4th time.