Frost Flowers and Leaves

Remember this???


Have a look at it now!

Wooooooooo hooooooooooo! After approximately NINE MONTHS of slogging away at this beast, it's hard to believe that it's finished! I calculated that this shawl is made up of aroundabout 130 000 stitches. With that number, I suppose that it's not so surprising that it took nine months. To be fair, though, I did complete more than thirty other projects in the meantime. I wonder how long it would have taken me, had I worked on it exclusively?



Project: Frost Flowers and Leaves
Designer: Eugen Beugler
Published in: A Gathering of Lace by Meg Swansen

Yarn Details:

• Jaggerspun Zephyr 2/18
• 50% merino wool, 50% silk
• 454gr=4609m
• colour "Basil"

I can't really specify how much of this yarn I needed, as I'm not sure whether the weight of the cone is just the yarn, or the yarn plus the cone. Either way, the cone now weighs 304gr.

Finished measurements: 125cm square (i.e. bloody huge)

Needles: 3mm bamboo dpns and circulars in length 60cm, 80cm and 110cm

When I started this back in October, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how much work this was going to be. Just getting past the first ten rows was a task in itself and that took about twenty restarts to get it right.

After many months of knitting and not getting very far very quickly, I realised that I would need to set myself a finishing date, otherwise it might languish in the WIP pile like too many other things. So, the final finishing date was set for the 22nd of June and monthly goals of 15% were planned to keep things moving along smoothly.

After six repeats of chart 2, I'd had enough. The pattern calls for seven repeats, but seriously, I could see that it was already massive and that seven repeats would be overkill. The most painful part was the border, which hibernated frustratingly for about three weeks at the half-way mark.

In the very early hours of Thursday the 19th of June, my husband looked on as I triumphantly finished the last stitches. At last!

I didn't use any pins or blocking wires to block this, as it didn't really seem necessary, and besides, I didn't have nearly enough pins to block it anyway. Quite a few people have commented about this yarn bleeding a bit in washing, but the water was only the faintest green colour in this case. After reading more, it seems that it's mainly the red hues that seem to run.

So now that it's done, I'm too scared to use it! Can you imagine what a disaster it would be to get it caught in a zip, snagged on a tree branch or stuck to some velcro? My friends and I were joking that I need to frame it in special fire-proof glass and hang it on the wall. Or, better yet, put it in a safety deposit box at the bank.


Finishing this shawl has given me a great sense of achievement and pride, as well as relief! I've come a long way in a couple of years of solid crafting and this is something that I'll always have with me.