The Velvet Damson Juneberry Triangle

Saw the pattern, loved it. Tried to get it, couldn't (the magazine was only available in North America, tut!). Waited till October, found it on Ravelry (yay!), bought it, downloaded it, picked a yarn from my stash...

...and guess what!
It's already finished.

I was chomping at the bit to get into this!  But I'm still very surprised that I managed to knit this up so quickly.  I was expecting it to take a month, or so, so imagine my surprise when it got done in a week.  Being on holiday and able to knit all day might have something to do with that though, funnily enough...

Here it is:



Isn't it gorgeous?

The yarn is Colinette's Jitterbug in Velvet Damson, I used a bit more than one skein (check the yardage given in the pattern, I think I'm very close to that).  I knit this on 4mm needles, the nice pointy ones from Hiya Hiya I think (if that's the silver ones? I get confused, I have so many).

The pattern is a little tricky: the WS rows are not just purl but lace knitting as well, but they are quite repetitive so not too difficult to do.  The edging is a bit more challenging, I needed to refer to the chart all the way round - it is easy to see what you're doing on the RS rows!

I realised quite late in the day (when it was too late to do anything about it) that the nupps didn't pop out on the RS very much at all.  Instead they just look as if the knitted fabric is a bit denser in those areas.  Must be down to my knitting?  In the edging I knit another row and only then decreased back to one stitch, that worked a lot better.  I'd like to make this shawl again and then I intend to get those nupps to behave!

One alteration to the pattern: I didn't like to miss out on the garter edge to cast on anew for the edging, so instead I knit up the three garter stitches, back and forth, for long enough to pick up 19 stitches along the relevant edge (3 per two loops), that together with the stitch from binding off those three garter stitches then gave me the 20 stitches specified to start the edging chart.  I should have probably started three rows into that chart to get to a similar point in the repeats when I got to the triangle's top point to get the nupps placed symetrical, but hey: it's handmade, what do you want.  Not perfection, that's for sure.

I'm loving it, I can't stop wearing it.  Which is the best sign that it's a successful project!  I love showing it off too.

PS: I just uploaded lots more piccies onto my Ravelry project page, if you'd like to take a look in closer detail.