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Regina Marie shawl

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(Nov 2020 - Dec 2020) My first lace weight shawl aka adorn :) !

Details

Notes

I got this super pretty lace weight yarn in one of my Darn Good Yarn mystery boxes! So I decided to try knitting a lacy shawl for my mom for Christmas! The biggest challenge was finding a pattern which looked good, was free, and wouldn’t use too much yarn. I only had the one ball and once I ran out, I was out! I ended up choosing the Regina Marie shawl, which looked beautiful, had great reviews, and looked fun!

I cast on with a larger needle (don’t remember what size, maybe size 6?) and after switching to size 4 for the remainder of the pattern, I was off! The pattern was really nice and interesting. A little too complicated to memorize so I needed to follow the pattern the whole time, but once you got a bit used to it, it went much faster.

The construction of the shawl was super cool too: You start by more or less knitting a thin rectangle - that’s the pattern part at the edge of the shawl. So you work this little strip along the outside of the shawl, and then you fill in the inside with stockinette which is what gives it its shape. But when knitting the pattern part, each row a stitch is left unworked and left on the needle, and because of the way the stitch was worked on the previous row (I think), that unworked stitch contributes one stitch to the length of the rectangle (which you end up working stockinette on). So instead of picking up any stitches along the edge of the rectangle to start stockinette, those stitches are already all live on your needle the whole time. I don’t think I explained that very well, so just look at the diagrams in the pattern. It is much clearer to see :)

Modifications

The pattern calls for 26 repeats of the lace pattern, but as I mentioned, I was super worried about running out of yarn! I looked through a lot of the other projects that had made this pattern before, and it seemed like most of the other ones used more yarn than I had on hand. So instead of 26 repeats, I did 24 repeats. On the stockinette part, I knit 3st after the turn until there were 48 stitches left, and then I knit 2st after the turn. I did the 3 stitch i-cord bind off as recommended by the pattern. The i-cord bind off is recommended to help stabilize the edge, but it still curls a little from the stockinette part. I need to block it still so hopefully that will help.

Fun fact: I frogged and knit this shawl probably approximately 5 times to completion. When I first knit the pattern, I did 23 repeats instead. I got all the way to the end, when I realized that I would probably have a little bit of yarn left. But this yarn was so nice and I can’t use it for any future pattern, that I was determined to use up as much of it as I could! So I frogged the entire stockinette, very carefully picked up the stitches again, and knit an extra repeat for 24 repeats in total. Then when I was doing the stockinette, I kept trying to come as close to using up all the yarn as humanly possible without leaving too much left. As a result, I oscillated between barely running out of yarn, to having (what I deemed) too much yarn left over, and I kept knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging. Until I landed on this set of modifications, and had a very little bit of yarn left so I was satisfied (and sick of frogging and knitting) and decided to stop. I also discovered though that an i-cord bind off takes way more yarn than you would expect! Probably because it is 3 stitches in the place of what is usually 1. Anyways, just another episode of “I am a cheapo” :)

Blocking

This is the first time I am blocking a project! I have heard it makes a BIG difference with lace work. Because this is silk yarn, which is apparently more fragile than other yarns e.g. wool, I used a technique called spray blocking instead of wet or steam blocking. Essentially I pinned the work into place and then sprayed it with room temperature water in a spray bottle until the work was lightly damp everywhere. Then you just let it air dry (not in direct sunlight) and it supposedly will keep its shape once dried.

I actually sprayed it down and let it air dry twice because I was skeptical it would work and I didn’t want to unpin it only to have to reblock and repin it. So hopefully it will ultra keep its shape. I think the before and during blocking pictures are super interesting. Watch for scale :)

Also technically, you can get special blocking mats, blocking pins, and blocking detergent. But I just used a (really really old) cork board with a cheap towel laid over it, regular push pins (blocking pins are supposed to be stainless steel so they won’t rust), and room temperature tap water (you aren’t supposed to use any detergent/soap for blocking silk yarn). I think this worked sufficiently well so unless I have a much bigger thing I need to block (or unless the push pins rust), I will probably just continue using this. Proof that literally never throwing anything away has its positives sometimes!

Update: I unpinned it and it didn’t shrink back! It looks SO much better post-blocking compared with pre-blocking :)