FO 2005-07: Shawlapalooza

Never mind the loose ends, it's finished! I handed the shawl off to Ms. Spinnity yesterday, and she and the bride are going to fashion some sort of crochet or garter st edging.

This was an interesting project to work on. I survived knitting with mohair. Actually, after understanding what I could and couldn't do, the mohair didn't bother me that much.

But I learned that knitting with ribbon can be a real challenge. I tried the ziploc bag trick and that worked okay, but not great. What worked a whole lot better was to plop the ball of ribbon in a small bowl and let it flop around on its own.

I wasn't ever able to master the art of the twisting ribbon. I tried to keep the ribbon as flat as possible as I was knitting, but that meant it would twist up in no time. So I tried traditional knitting on the right side, then combo knitting on the wrong side where I wrapped the ribbon clockwise in hopes of untwisting it. That helped a bit. What I really needed was a lazy susan. I could have put the bowl on it and untwisted the yarn in no time.

Last but not least, I had problems with poking the ribbon with my right needle. I really had to slow down to avoid snagging the beautiful fiber. Luckily, the ribbon bounced back to its lovely self with a couple of tugs after being stabbed with a hefty size 13 needle. Whew!

So there you have it. A wedding shawl. El mantón de la boda.

Related posts:
Too many projects
Shawlapalooza progress