Lace shawl part 1

So I decided to start working on the lace shawl pattern I found to use with the lace weight 100% alpaca I got for myself back for Christmas. They said it was sock/fingering weight, but when I got it . . . nope, definitely NOT sock weight. Definitely lace weight. I was a bit irritated over that, I mean it is beautiful yarn and oh so soft, but I wasn't intending to get lace weight. Which is why I didn't get the garnet colored lace weight 100% alpaca. So I found a pattern on Ravelry and they used that specific yarn in the example (which I mentioned in a previous blog post).

So . . . on Monday, I started winding the yarn from a skein into a ball. Well . . . it's more of a football shape rather than ball. But the main thing is that it pulls nicely from the center, which is the point. Though I did look up ball winder prices. And found one to bid on on eBay (they were much more expensive on either the woolery or paradise fibers). Now I'm just waiting for it to be shipped.

I've not actually ever used lace weight yarn. It's definitely way thinner than I was expecting. And winding it into a ball . . . just seemed to take foreeeever!

So, then I started actually knitting the shawl. There's a 2 inch border on all sides (and I really probably ought to be using a size bigger as I think it's a smidge small, but I'm going with what I have). I was knitting on it at the music show I went to on Tuesday (the Chuck Johnson Experience - lead singer of TK-421 singing/playing some really good songs at Buffalo Wild Wings, he played All Along the Watchtower, like I requested :) ) . . . after doing 3 repeats and counting only 12 stitches left instead of 17. Hmmm maybe stitching a lace shawl isn't the best idea while attending a music show at Buffalo Wild Wings. So I switched over to the rest of the sock I had started.

So yesterday, I wrote out the pattern rows so I could check them off methodically. And this time, I had 17 stitches left when I was supposed to have 17 stitches left yay!

So far, I've done 2 repeats of the pattern . . . so far so good. It doesn't look like much, but that's because lace shawls need to be pinned and blocked and such. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do that . . . but cross that bridge when I get to it.

So here's the pic I took! It's kind of hard taking a pic of a lace shawl on knitting needles . . . you hafta stretch it out and still need to take the pic.



When I was working on it tonight, I thought, oh gosh, I can't wait to go home and knit some more on this! And I gotta say, in the words of my friend Gilee, lace weight shawl knitting is hardcore. I kind of felt a bit badass knitting on this shawl.