Orenburg Gossamer Shawl
July 2018 to April 2019

Click image for enlargement.
Early last July I found myself with no unfinished knitting projects and went digging in my yarn stash for "something" to knit that would be small enough to carry to my weekly knitting group. I came up with a ball of laceweight yarn called "Gentle" by Yarn Place. It's 5% Cashmere and 95% Australian Merino.

Then I went looking for a pattern to go with it and found this Orenburg shawl by Galina A. Khmeleva and Carol R. Noble in a Knitting Traditions magazine.

Nine and a half months later here it is - fresh off the needles it measures 26 by 37 inches.

(18:04:2019)

Here's a closer look at the border pattern.

The pattern intended for the shawl to be square, but I shortened it because I was worried about running out of yarn. I ended up with 108 yards left over, which means that the shawl used 1272 yards.

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But no fibre project is finished until it's "wet finished" so into the soapy water it goes. It soaked for about 90 minutes. No suds here because this is a rinse.

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A wet soggy heap.

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Spread on a towel, which will be rolled up and "stomped" on to absorb as much water as possible.

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Then stre-e-e-tched out and pinned down to dry. Now it measures 43 by 48 inches! I didn't have enough foam mats to fill the whole area so some of it is pinned to the bed.

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A closer look - blocking wires are run through the points of the border and the pins hold the wires in place.

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All finished. Off the pins it has relaxed to 41 by 46 inches - a bit too big for Neil the Bear to model.

While carting this to knitting group, at home I knitted a gift scarf for the guild exchange last year and started on a vest for Allan that's not quite finished. It should be coming to these pages soon.

(19:04:2019)
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