Given my notoriety for not completing, I decided to go easy on myself and choose a chunky lace rather than traditional laceweight (although a couple of our group went this path and look right to finish before the end of the month - amazing!)
Cold Pine, by Caitlin ffrench fit the bill, and was already on my to-knit list for my 24in12 challenge, plus I had *just* enough Malabrigo merino worsted in my stash to use up.
Casting on September 1st, this little knit powered along (5mm needles do help, of course). I do like knitting with Malabrigo, but being a single, it can be a little hard on my wrists. It's very sticky, and this pattern has lots of yo's, ssk's and even sssk/k3tog's so I had to take a days break every now and then during the process.
Cold Pine is a great free pattern, albeit a little unusual in my opinion. There did not seem to be any logic to the lace, and I found it very hard to "read" my work as I went. Each row seemed to be doing it's own thing, unlike lace I've knit previously where each row tends to directly relate to the row before.
That said, I did knit this from written instructions, not chart, and that may have contributed to my sense of disjointedness? Originally I was reading the pattern off a screen and I find it difficult to read charts in that format, and then when I did finally print the pattern out it just seemed easier to continue as established.
This shawl is more a half-circle than a triangle, but it kind of lies in-between the two. I got to the border and still had a significant amount of yarn leftover, so I added some more eyelet lace and garter rows to use up as much as possible. Stash-busting at its best.
Oh, and from cast-on to cast-off took me 12 days, even with breaks, so that's a quick lace project in anyone's books!
The squishability of the malabrigo will be lovely against a neck. I'm not sure if I'll keep this finished object for myself or pass it on to someone as a gift? The colour is lovely, but I'm not convinced it's right for me and I know heaps of people who would love it and wear it a ton.
However, along with being notorious for not finishing KAL's, I'm equally terrible at letting things go (unless they were specifically knitted as gifts, then it's easy). Every time I think; yep - that's going to so-and-so - I have last minute pangs of regret, so I'm going to let it marinate on my bedroom dresser for a week or two before I decide...!
