I told you last week that I’d cast on this shawl, Heaven Scent by BooKnits in Freia Handpaints Ombré Shawl Ball. (That post is right here.) It turned out to be a compulsive knit and I charged right through the charts. I knew it would be a close call to make it out of the one ball, and ended up playing yarn chicken.

Could I finish with the one ball of yarn? As with many crescent shawls, you increase the needle size at increments in this pattern, which opens up the lace even before blocking. Keeping an eye on my diminishing ball of yarn, I didn’t change needles for the border, but kept on with the ones I’d used for the body.

I made it to the final row and chose not to do the picot edge, hoping I’d still make it.

Nope.

The cast-off is on a wrong side row, so I made it all the way from the left edge to where you see the last 8″ of my yarn. It’s maybe 3/4 of the way around. I lost yarn chicken.

I also played bead chicken at the same time, but I won that. I added more beads to the border then realized I might run out. I have five beads left in the vial. Phew!

I went through all my stash, and my bits and ends, but couldn’t find anything to match that shade of red in a single ply wool. I couldn’t even match the colour. (The colours of this yarn have photographed to look more vivid than they are in real life. They’re bright, but not this bright.) So, I picked back the cast-off row and cast off again. I thought I’d cast off in purple, a contrasting edge that matched the centre of the shawl, and couldn’t get the shade of purple right either. So, I used two strands for the cast-off, one in Sugar Bush Drizzle in Monsoon Mauve (which is a bit light) and one of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Black.

And here’s the result.

It’s funny that in this picture, the cast-off edge looks too dark. The purple in the middle of ths shawl appears to be the same shade as Monsoon Mauve. You’ll have to trust me that in real life, the colours are matchy-matchy.

Next up, a good soak and a blocking. I’ll show you the finished shawl when it’s done.

I’m kind of amazed that I knit this shawl in less than three weeks. I guess that’s what happens when I concentrate on one project, instead of working on a dozen things at once. (Actually, I had two on the go at the same time and finished the other one, too – it was the mittens and scarf of Patons Rumor. I’ll show you that tomorrow.) There’s a lesson there that I should take on board. 🙂