Simple Shawl FO

Last September I bought a skein of Tahki Cotton Classic at The Stitchin' Den in Estes Park. There was a sample of a simple shawl hanging from one of the racks in the shop and I really liked it. The pattern for the shawl came free with purchase of a skein of Cotton Classic, which is all the yarn you need for the shawl. One skein for a really cool shawl? Perfect!

Cut to May this year. My friend L's birthday was coming up, and I really wanted to make her something simple. After considering a few shawl patterns, I decided that I'd make her the Cotton Classic shawl. Only, I couldn't find the pattern. Anywhere. I had just seen it the previous week, but could not for the life of me find the damn thing.

Realizing that time was a-wastin', and I didn't have the patience to tear apart my house looking for the pattern, I thought I'd just make up my own pattern. I grabbed a size 15 circular needle, wound the yarn into a ball, and went to town.

For a whole 14 stitches.

The plan was to cast on 7 sts at the center top of the shawl and work my way down into a triangle. Problem was that worsted weight yarn on size 15s was awful to work. My hands aren't normally on speaking terms with large needles in the first place, but add yarn that is too thin for the needles and it's just too messy for my patience.

Start over, this time with size 10.5s. Ahhhh... Just right.



Of course, the smaller needles meant that my brilliant one-skein shawl was now going to require more than one skein. Since I wanted to make a small shawl, I calculated that I would need about 3 skeins total.

Off to Yarn Barn I went. I searched and searched and came up with nothing. I even asked the very helpful employees if they had that color in their stockroom. No luck. Not only did they not have the color in the stockroom, they don't even carry that color. Ugh. After much searching on the web, I ordered the 2 extra skeins from Yarn Market. I had only 2 weeks to finish the shawl, so I had to pay for 2-day shipping - more than I paid for the yarn itself.

But, I did it. I finished it in enough time to block it so that it was dry the day before L's birthday.

So, here's the basic pattern: cast on 7 sts; knit the first row. On every right side row, k2, yo, knit to center st; yo, k1, yo, knit to last 3 sts; yo, k2. On every wrong side row, p all the way across. See? Simple.



The cast off was more complicated. I did a crochet chain cast off. It seemed to compliment the yarn overs well.



Here are the details:
Pattern: my own
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic, color number 1724
Needles: 24" size 10.5 Addis
Started: last week of May 2008
Finished: 6/19/08

I wish I had some modeled shots of this thing. I completely forgot to take some before wrapping it up.

L loved it. I gave it to her at lunch on the 24th and she wore it the rest of the day. Even took it to Shane's desk to show him (she works at the same company that Shane and I work for, and she and her boyfriend are just about the only couple friends that we have besides Wendy and Pete). That made me smile.