Blocking! Blocked to 42″x42″, with a whole lot of T-pins - 200, to be exact! Newton likes how it turned out. :)

Blocking detail - corner and one side. I love this blocking board!

Paisley Lace Shawl Notes —

Pattern: Paisley Lace Shawl, by Evelyn A. Clark, Interweave Knits, Spring 2005. The pattern was very well written, very clear, and had no mistakes. I found I didn’t have to use as many sets of needles as recommended by the pattern.

Needles: Size 5, 7″ Clover bamboo DPNs (first 6 or 7 rounds), size 5 Addi Turbo circular 32″ (remainder of the shawl), size 7 Bryspun straight (bindoff)

Yarn: Frog Tree 100% Alpaca Wool, fingering weight, color #95, 215 yards, 4 complete skeins used (only a few yards left over). (Substituted for 1125 yds Jaggerspun Zephyr) This 2 ply yarn is super soft, and knits up nicely. I didn’t have any problems with splitting. My only complaint is that each skein had a couple of areas in the yarn where there were slubs or thick-ish areas. One skein had a ply that was broken and knotted on one place, while the other ply was continuous. These small flaws in the yarn are not noticeable in the finished shawl.

Highlights:
- My first lace project! Lace is quite addictive, I really enjoyed knitting this shawl, and will likely do more lace knitting in the future.
- I learned Emily Ocker’s Circular Beginning for the cast on - it worked well.
- I learned how to knit from a chart (a simple chart, but a chart nonetheless).
- I figured out how to fix a missed yarn-over on a subsequent row (see previous yarn-over tutorial)
- I learned how to do a picot edging (see lowlights), and think it is a nice edge for the shawl. To get the picots to look right, I purchased a pair of Bryspun needles 2 sizes larger than what I was using for the shawl, and used a Bryspun for my right needle while casting off. It allowed me to do a loose cast off while still maintaining an even stitch tension.
- There are NO mistakes in the finished shawl! (yes, I’m a knitting perfectionist)
- I got to finally use my birthday present - the blocking board - yay!
- Quality bonding time spent with Todd while blocking - he helped me pin all of the picots down… what a guy!

Lowlights:
- The beginning of the shawl knit up deceivingly quickly. It took me longer to bind off than it took me to knit the first 8 pattern repeats! I guess that’s what happens when you increase 8 stitches every other round!
- Addi turbos are NOT the best needles to use for lace. The tips are not pointy enough. The Bryspun straights, on the other hand, had wonderfully pointy tips. I think the Bryspuns (circulars) would be great for lace.
- The picot edging was tedious and looked really weird when I knit it. I think (hope!) it will look fine after blocking.

Tips/Tricks:
The placement of stitch markers as written in the pattern is awkward because you have to move the marker every time you increase. I used Clover Locking Stich Markers (orange and green, you can see them in one of the pre-blocking pictures), and locked one around the corner stitch at each corner at the beginning of each repeat. Then I could see where my increases needed to go (before and after the corner stitch), and I unclipped the markers and moved them up for each repeat. I did not use stitch markers to mark each pattern repeat, as the pattern is simple to see visually. I did, however, use a stitch marker in the middle of each side of the shawl when I got to the border chart. The stitch marker identified the middle of the pattern, and the left and right sides of the marker are mirror images of each other.

What I would do differently next time: I think this would be great as a triangular shawl. If I knit another one (quite possible, as it would be nice to have a shawl to keep in my office), I’ll try to convert it to a triangle. It would use half the yarn, take half the time, and require half the picots, AND there would be no purling required!