Big WIP: My wedding shawl

It’s official, Jason and I are getting married this fall. It’s the biggest craft project ever! Ha. There are many great things going into the works, but I the fear of feeling overwhelmed and a bit schizophrenic. So I’m going to focus on just one aspect, the wedding shawl.

{finished project from Ravelry, knit by rahardjo-knits, pattern by Jenny Johnson Johnen.}

I had actually drawn up a shawl design for my perfect wedding shawl. I loved it. And then I realized that I’m not really a lace knitter and it would take me just as long to work out the pattern as to knit the thing. And lace tends to cause a lot of swearing for me, so I finally relented and opted to go with a pattern.

I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted which can be a pretty dangerous thing. The main needs were that it was both elegant and warm. It’s an October wedding and the chance of snow is a real threat. But I didn’t want it to look casual or frumpy. So I kept that in mind while looking.

Lace knitting has a pretty long history and I felt confident that over the last 100+ years of publishing, someone, somewhere, knit the shawl I wanted. And they had.

In November 2009, Jenny Johnson Johnen typed up her first pattern ever, an amazing Estonian inspired design called the Echo Flower Shawl. And it’s free!

For warming reasons, I decided to go with a slightly fuzzy lace weight alpaca silk blend. This yarn is luxury plied. It’s a delight to knit with. I looked at every single incarnation of the shawl and then when I got it narrowed down to a few yarns, I looked at every project ever made with them. I opted for Silky Alpaca Lace by Classic Elite Yarns.

Now the colors. My wedding colors are burnt orange, a sort of sky blue, and silver. Do I go orange, blue or gray? My wedding dress is a simple tea length dress in ivory with a silver antique broach as an accent. After much ho humming and emails with my sister and best friend, blue was decided.

But oh the shade! This yarn has 3 lovely shades of blue. I called the only yarn shop in Central Iowa that sells it and they had exactly the amount I needed in Forget-Me-Not. Done.

Now to get started. I grabbed my Addi Turbos, a fist full of stitch markers, and got started. Knit knit knit. (#&#($*&@

Hmm, my count was off.

It was the most infuriating project and I was only 2 hours in. After 3 days of swearing and reworking stitches and whining to Jason about how my status as an expert knitter was being thwarted because a million knitters had successfully completed this project without a hitch. Then it finally clicked. Work the whole chart before the center, not just the repeat. So stupid. Now I was happily working along and my stitch count came out great.

And then I made the worst mistake ever. I took it to Creative Collision and worked on it while talking. Wow. Did I ever jack it up. Truth be told, I have no idea where I went so wrong as to be a whole 10 stitches short. Didn’t do a round of yarn overs? I don’t even care to figure it out. I’m calling “do over”. I messed up so bad I’m actually going to give it a huge rip and start from the beginning.

I wanted to show it to you first though:

Riiiiiiiiiiiip.

Riiiiip.

rip.

And that’s where I am on my wedding shawl. But hey, I have the pattern, the yarn, the needles, and a fist full of stitch markers. I have a good understanding of the pattern now, it should be easy peasy. Just no more talking, this is a high concentration project from here on out and I’m going to respect my own limitations.

What’s the most complex project you’ve ever made? What was your favorite wedding craft project?

Happy crafting!
Kristin