Finally - The Friends and Family Prize

If you are a family member still struggling to come to grips with not winning the 'Friends and Family' prize from my contest you may want to look away now.

For the rest of you - I present Shirl wearing her new shrug.

She asked for a shrug and after reviewing a few options settled on this - the Enchant shrug from Kim Hargreaves' latest collection: Nectar.

When I first looked at the pattern description online I thought this would be a quick knit, with minimal sewing up. Errrrr - not quite.

The body of the shrug is knit in one piece from cuff to cuff, and that is plain stockinette and does move quite quickly. But what I hadn't realised was that the sleeve and body edging is all knit separately and then stitched on. So much for minimal sewing!!

The edging pattern is k 1 row, purl 1 row, purl 1 row, knit 1 row - which gives a sort of double time garter ridge. There are small picots knit at the beginning of every right side row.

Oh - and there is about 6 1/2 feet of it. (I had barely made a dent in the front edging when I took this picture.)

I confess that I was dreading sewing the edging on. Seaming is not my strong point (perhaps that is why I like knitting lace scarves!) and was really worried I wouldnt be able to do it neatly enough....

But, I'd promised Shirl this shrug, so a-seaming I would go. Last Sunday I woke up early, drank a strong cup of fortifying tea, cleared the kitchen table to work on, picked up my darning needle and started stitching.

And I stitched.

And stitched.

And 5 1/2 hours (yep, 5 1/2 hours) later I had completed the last seam.

It was a good reminder that I CAN do neat seams - but that I need to take the time and space to do them properly.

The hard part over, I gave the sweater a steam block, made up a little label and voila! The last of the blogivesary prizes ready for presentation.

I met up with Shirl on Friday and handed over the shrug and she seems very pleased with it. Hurrah!!




The details:
Enchant from Nectar by Kim Hargreaves
Rowan Calmer in 'Calm', 5 balls (cotton, polyesther blend)
5mm needles (and a very tired darning needle)

Rowan Calmer has a stretch to it which takes a little getting used to, but it is gorgeously soft and (despite what the label says) is machine washable.

As with most Kim Hargreaves designs, the pattern is clear and easy to follow.

Random Act of Kindness
This little white cloud of fluff will be a random act of kindness (if it is completed SOON) or, a fluffy white thing I knit which I don't really have any use for (if it isn't). So I'm off to knit.