Through the Loops Mystery KAL

I took part in the Through the Loops Mystery KAL by Kirsten Kapur during the month of June.  Each week I received a part of the pattern, five clues in total.  Here is the finished shawl:

Ta-da

I can't tell you how happy I was with the whole process.  First the yarn...this was my first time using Black Trillium Fibres and it is so beautiful I cannot capture it on camera.   The colours seem to glow and the slight variegation in each skein was so pretty.  The yarn blocked beautifully.  I will definitely buy more of this yarn, there are just so many pretty colours to choose from.

The pattern:  I have been slowly working on improving my lace knitting skills.  This was the most challenging lace project I have done to date.  In fact if I had seen what the finished shawl looked like before starting it I might have shied away from doing it at all.  By getting a part of the pattern each week it made it feel manageable.  I was happy to discover that there were no tricky stitches and I solely used the charts (although written directions were provided).  For me the difficulty lay when I occasionally missed a yarn over, throwing off my stitch count.  I would then have to go back and figure out where I had gone wrong.  However, I quickly learned that using stitch markers throughout each row, to mark the repeated part of the pattern, was extremely helpful as well as putting in the occasional life line. The directions were very well written with enlarged charts to follow and the pattern was fun to knit.  I highly recommend it.  Look here to see the other finished shawls...each one is gorgeous.

Blocking:  Ahhhh the magic of blocking.  Look at this pattern completed before blocking:

Pre-blocking

Now look at it after...It was so much fun to block and see the magical transformation.  That's my favourite part of knitting.

After blocking

So if you are looking for a shawl pattern to knit this summer you can't go wrong with Kristin Kapur's design.