2021 Round Up Part Two

This is the other project I finished just before the end of the year. I started this project on 30 November 2019 as the 2019 Advent shawl. I knew I would not be able to keep up with the rows every day as it is complicated lace knitting but I wanted to get it started. I started 2021 with it about half-way completed and great plans to work on it every day. In the end I decided I would work a clue each month as there were enough remaining to take me through to the end of the year. And this I could keep up with. The pattern required a lot of concentration and, funnily enough, that made it quite boring so having a plan made the end achievable. Until I hit a snag. I ran out of yarn. Towards the end, I was weighing the yarn after every couple of rows and knew it would be close. The last clue was the edging which was a sideways knit edge with yarnovers and corresponding decreases and knitting the live stitches; yarn wise equivalent to a few rows. I could have undone two rows but I really didn’t want to do that. As I said the pattern is complicated and there are lots of double decreases also I would probably have taken out four rows just to be on the safe side.

So why not buy more yarn – because it was discontinued. I estimated I would need about 5g. I went to that trusty source Ravelry and someone was selling their leftovers. But the price they wanted plus postage was more than I wanted to pay for such a small amount of yarn. I had the option of using left over lace weight in a different colour if I really couldn’t find the same yarn. But first I approached someone else who had yarn leftover from their project. They were willing to send it to me for the price of postage. This was very acceptable.

The border wasn’t hard but having got this far, I wasn’t going to rush it so I only get worked on when I wasn’t going to be interrupted. The blocking was easy, apart from size, as I soaked it and then just laid it out with the top pinned. I did not stretch it out at all as I did not think it needed it. Although we had had wet weather, it dried very quickly and it was completely finished ends sewn in and trimmed on 31 December.

Here are pictures pre and post blocking.