Tag Archives: mystery shawl

Now that the festive knitting is done, bar the blocking, I’m not in the mood to think about starting anything new quite yet. And it’s not as if I don’t have several unfinished projects languishing in my knitting bag. So I chose the one I feel most guilty about. *blushes*

Like everyone else who took part, I started the Anniversary Mystery Shawl knitalong back in June. The clues were released weekly, and for the first couple of weeks, I kept on track and was feeling all pleased with myself. Even when I frogged it and restarted with entirely different patterns, I didn’t get far behind. Then birthday present knitting took over in July and August and after knitting two huge shawls, I wanted a break from dainty lace. Then of course there was festive knitting and this poor shawl just got completely neglected. So much so that the pattern is not even very mysterious any more, and has been released to be bought by anyone who fancies it.

When I rescued it from obscurity on the weekend, I was just a few rounds from the end of Clue 3, which I easily finished off that day. But now Clue 4 is to be tackled. On the suggestion of a wiser knitter, I have put in stitch markers to separate each 48 stitch pattern repeat to make sure that I don’t mess up, something which I never usually do but probably should (put in stitch markers, I mean – I do mess up quite frequently!). With over five hundred stitches on the needle, it doesn’t make for great photography, sadly.

It’s not exactly mindless knitting for picking up at odd moments over the Christmas break, and I suspect that there’ll be another new project to tempt me very soon. But for now, I am dedicated to mysterious knitting and can feel smug that the project has had the “zzz” removed on my Ravelry project page.

I realise I’m overdue with my weekly Mystery Shawl progress post. Anyone would think that I had started clue 3, made a mistake, tinked, dropped a stitch, couldn’t find it, frogged the whole thing, restarted, made another mistake even earlier in the pattern, frogged again and then started from scratch for the third time and am now finally just over a third of the way through clue 3… *blushes*

There will be an update post hopefully on Friday. I think I’ll have to leave Clue 4 for a while, though, as there’s a certain other project to finish which has a definite deadline.

Clue 2 of the Mystery Shawl was posted yesterday, and I imaginatively went for Chart D again. I think now I can stretch the shawl out a little more that Clue 1 is looking a little less scribbly, but looking at the shawls appearing on Ravelry, I’m wishing I did Chart A which has a nice, sweeping, swirly thing going on. But I can always knit another shawl, and once this one is finished and blocked, it will probably look better. And I’ve moved up to a 60cm circ now, which I’m hoping will be long enough to take me through to the end. Mainly because both of my 80cm Addi Lace needles are in use..!

I suppose Clue 3 onwards won’t be posted on here so soon after being released. Now with 288 sts and the next clue being 48 rounds, I imagine it’s going to take a tiny bit longer!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m taking part in the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl Knitalong. Clue 1 was released yesterday – a day early – so I sat down yesterday evening and made a start. An advantage of only having part of the pattern at a time means that this project won’t distract me from my other knitting. At least, while each section is only a few rows.

This is Clue 1 completed in all its glory. Not much to see for an evening’s work. Most of the time was taken up with re-learning Emily Ocker’s Crochet Cast On. I used this for my last Pi Shawl and when I actually manage to do it, it works. And last night I had a lot of practice. I got to about round 10 of the shawl and my yarn snapped. I think due to inefficient spit-splicing on my part, though it didn’t make me feel any better. The worst part is trying to knit in the round with 9 stitches with yarn that’s as thin as sewing thread and bamboo dpns that are going in every direction but where I want them to go!

Anyway, after a break for a calming cup of tea and a toasted crumpet, I started again and this time managed to get to the end. For anyone reading this who is also knitting the shawl, I used Chart D. It doesn’t really look like anything much once it’s knitted up. I’m wondering if the pattern flows into the second section and so on; one disadvantage is not having a photo of the completed shawl to refer to so that I can be reassured that what I think looks like knitted scribble is actually a thing of beauty.