Circle Mutable

Cap Shawl
From Victoria Lace Today
by Jane Sowerby
The Ravelry entry for this shawl is here.

Cast On: January 3, 2008
Bound Off: August 30, 2008
Finished Size: 99"
Weight and Yardage: 178 grams, 1958 yards ETA: A Raveller has calculated there are 89,214 stitches in the Cap Shawl. That's a lot......a lot of stitches.
Tension: ?
Needle: 4.5mm bamboo circular
Yarn: 3.2 balls Fiddlesticks Zephyr 50% silk, 50% merino, colour Ruby, 630 yds/2 oz (~56 g)
Yarn Source: Village Yarns, Cumberland, BC
Yarn Cost: $64
Modifications:
The pattern does not use directional decreases: that is, all the decreases are k2tog, even when the lace is sloping left. I used the left-leaning SSK decrease when called for as I felt it created a less choppy, more elegant line in the left branches of the crest o' the wave section.

Notes:
A word on blocking circular lace. What you want to do is this: take a huge sheet, folded 4 times and centre marked, and pin it flat to a carpet. Pin a measuring tape at the centre, or you could use string, and hold a fabric marker at approximately the radius measurement of your desired finished size. Mark a perfect circle. Block to the circle, or to a consistent distance away from it. Circle perfection, and no irritating measuring and repinning.

Also, use blocking wires.

At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this shawl. I wish it were a bit more complicated, both because I was bored while knitting it, and because I like intricate lace. However, the sheer size of this mammoth shawl makes it impressive.




As to wearing it, as Annalea asked yesterday, I think it will do well with the top third folded down. It will still overlap a lot in front, but I think it'll be okay. The real problem will be storing it. I don't necessarily want it folded up somewhere between layers of tissue, but because it's a circle there's no good way to display it, unless I want to run a bunch of pins into my wall. Anyway my walls are not big enough to accommodate it - I only have an 8 foot ceiling. I guess I could buy a 100" curtain rod and hang it, in half, from that...we'll see.




Practical considerations notwithstanding, I am in love, sweet sweet love, with this shawl. You can tell by the fact that when I went to put all the photos from the memory card onto the laptop, Photoshop told me I had taken 83 pictures of my shawl. News to me.



Here are some of them, with grateful thanks to the beautiful, angelic Jen for being a good sport and modelling for me. Do click on the pictures, as they look much better when bigger.



It was quite a windy day here, and the beach seemed perfect, but it did prove a little tricky to get photos that were even moderately well focussed.





I like the motion shots though.





After a half-hour at the beach, I went home and played around in the shrubbery, lying on the grass and crouching awkwardly trying not to get the neighbour's house in the shots. I was hoping someone would notice me and come over and exclaim over the shawl, but no one did.



Yes, for you I hung my brand-new lace on two apple trees and a rhododendron...




...and let it drag on grass.




Herb garden fence, ornamented.





Thanks for all your wonderful comments yesterday. I just meant that post to be a blocking update, so I hope you can summon up the will to comment again today, on the very same piece of knitting...I like comments.