I have just finished knitting The Orchid Thief by YsoldaTegue. I knit it for my friend who is
getting married (on my birthday!) She
admired the shawl I knit for myself for my wedding, so I thought knitting her
one would be a good wedding gift. My
shawl was more for warmth, it was knit out of worsted weight wool in a cable
pattern. Since she was getting married
in July, she would need a shawl that was more light weight, probably only used
in the evening after the sun went down and it got colder. I also didn’t give myself a lot of time to do
this, so I let her choose from a few different shawlettes on Ravelry, some with
a plain garter stitch top and a lace border, but she chose the Orchid thief.
The months leading up to my wedding I went into knitting
overdrive. I bought bunches of yarns in
our wedding colours, with grand plans on what they were for which never came to
life. I did knit myself thigh highstockings , then embroidered them, the cabled shawl and a pink shrug. We had a warm spell here in March, they had
it in Ireland too, so I started knitting a lace shawl, just incase it was too
warm to wear the cabled shawl. When I
first got the idea of another shawl, I searched Ravelry for the perfect
one. I narrowed it down to about 6
shawls, then I had Tim be the tie breaker.
He picked the Orchid Thief and he was very enthusiastic about it. I had never knit lace before, I figured what
was the big deal, I could read a pattern, it was just YO and K2tog right? Oh, and I’m not a chart reader either. Again, not a big deal I thought, there is a
legend to tell you what all the symbols mean.
This pattern was only available in a book, I checked it out from the
library, no time to order it. By this
point, I only had a few weeks left before the wedding. Not a great time to try something I had never
done before with my stress level getting higher and higher. Luckily, I had the yarn I wanted to use
already. I read the posts on Ravelry,
people had some problems with this pattern and there was errata, I printed that
out. I saw that someone on Ravelry had used
beads. I had beads! What the heck, let’s
add those in too. ( I had never knit with beads before either). Ysolda
has a very different style, she constructs things differently than standard,
which is neat, put you really have to let go of everything you know or think
you know and follow the instructions. The
problem I had with this pattern is the instructions weren’t there. Everything had been abbreviated, I’m guessing
because of the book printer, but still, some sections were very hard to follow,
especially chart 4. I went merrily along
with chart 4, and I ended up with half a motif.
Why was there half a motif? What
do you mean, you can’t fudge lace knitting?
Who has the time to knit it properly?
I was running out of time and I’m sure when we got to Ireland this shawl
would make all the difference between a good wedding and a great wedding. If I didn’t have this shawl, my wedding just
wouldn’t be good enough. I needed to
have choices! Who just has one wedding
shawl? Choices are key! Tim came home and found me frustrated and freaking
out. We had a discussion. Yes, the other shawl I had already knit would
be great. No, I didn’t really need this
lace one. Put. The. Knitting. Down. It
we had a week before we left for Ireland, and the knitting had to stop. I moved on to prep for the party when we got
back. That’s a whole other land of crazy
for another day.
The Orchid Thief, round 2.
I had the yarn already, different from the failed attempt, so time to go
again. I had given myself more time this
time, but since the wedding was not in town, I had to make sure I had it done
before she left. I decided no beads, and
off I went. The first chart is really no
problem, it’s very small at this point.
You start with a motif at the base of the neck and work outwards.
The 2nd and 3rd charts
are basically a grid, so as long as you stay on grid, it’s fine. I used lots of stitch markers, and once I
figured out where are the spines were and what was supposed to line up with
what I was fine. It’s a repeat of the same concept over and
over. I do think it’s cool that while
you are repeating, the shawl is growing longer and wider, like magic. Then the dreaded chart 4. I had put in a life line at this point, thank
goodness I did. I had to rip this out
several times. I tried to follow the chart,
didn’t work. I tried to follow other
peoples notes on Ravelry, didn’t work. I
didn’t really understand how the spines lined up with what was in the chart. I was worried that if I just merrily went
along, the spines weren’t going to line up with the flower motif like they were
supposed to. With lace, I can’t really
tell if I had done things right until it’s finished and blocking, which was
scary. I finally figured it out, hoping
for the best and finished. The bride had
asked for some of her wedding colour incorporated in. I decided to bind off in the purple and
crochet a chain ruffle edge.
When I
blocked it, I could tell the spots that I fudged. On chart 4, I kept ending up with one stitch
too many, so instead of a SK2p, I just did a K2tog. This didn’t give the motif a nice, crisp edge
that it should have, but I was too far gone to fix it.
I gave it to the bride last night, and she
loved it. I look forward to seeing the
wedding pictures. I can’t believe I
mastered it.
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