5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge: Day Five

WE'VE MADE IT! Here we are at the final day of Frenchie's "5 Shawls, 5 Days" Challenge, which seems to have come and gone like a New York minute.

Today's mini project was the Square Shawl, a pattern that gave me more problems than I'd like to admit because I started on circulars. Circs are usually my best friend when it comes to knitting in the round, so I was surprised when that blew out the window (and I couldn't tell you why if I tried). I cast on again anyway and had better luck after Frenchie sent more in-depth instructions (and a correction!), so thankfully I was able to finish. I even joined tonight's Periscope session!

I know. Fridays never get less exciting when you're 32 and can't drink until Monday thanks to the 21DSD program you're on. Whatever, people; I'm happy.

PS: As I'm listening to tonight's Periscope, Frenchie just mentioned this is a good shape to start a top-down hat, so that'll be happening in some future designs. Maybe. Sorta. Well, I guess we'll see.

PPS: I switched over the service that delivers "You May Also Like" blog content today and it's taking forever to index my website, so the chances of you receiving static, unrelated articles at the bottom of this post are pretty good and I apologize. If it doesn't rectify itself soon, I'll be submitting a support ticket because I know it's super annoying.

About the Challenge

Hosted by Frenchie of Aroha Knits, the "5 Shawls, 5 Days" challenge takes participants through a handful of standard shawl techniques, teaching us the basic construction of five shapes that will help us on our own journeys into shawl design. Anyone participating in the official challenge will be entered to win her upcoming ebook, "Forming Shawls and Their Charts", which will be available soon!

Found out about the challenge too late? There's now a DIY version of the challenge available here. You won't be entered to win a copy of the book, but you can follow along with the tutorials and learn something new, which is always a win :)

You can keep track of all the shawl construction designs by visiting the project on my Ravelry page.

Have a Happy Easter Weekend!

I'll be visiting my family back "home" and will probably spend most of my Saturday rounding up a project or two to take with me since dying eggs doesn't seem to be in my cards for 2016. I just got some gorgeous Knit Picks yarn in the Graffiti Speckle Hawthorne colorway, so I'm hoping to start knitting a pair of Crenate socks after waking from my ham dinner coma. A girl can dream, anyway.

5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge: Day Four

My Half-Pi shawl came out looking LITERALLY like a freaking piece of pie.

Day four of the "5 Shawls, 5 Days" Challenge brought us the Half-Pi shape, a construction that (according to Frenchie) favors lace knitting. Yikes!

Okay, so tackle this I did (or, well, tried to), and it seemed to go well until I realized it had developed into more of a wedge than a half-pi. In other words, it's supposed to look like half a circle.

Hmmm.

Turns out I should've used a lighter weight yarn, bigger needles, or heck - both. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn something new, and I understand the technique, so there are more wins than losses here. I just got kicked in the butt for trying to use cheaper yarn for my swatches, which I knew would come back to bite me at some point.

I can't believe there's only one more day left already. This week has blown by thanks to all the projects I've got going for myself, knitting and otherwise. Bring on Friday!

About the Challenge

Hosted by Frenchie of Aroha Knits, the "5 Shawls, 5 Days" challenge takes participants through a handful of standard shawl techniques, teaching us the basic construction of five shapes that will help us on our own journeys into shawl design. Anyone participating in the official challenge will be entered to win her upcoming ebook, "Forming Shawls and Their Charts", which will be available soon!

Found out about the challenge too late? There's now a DIY version of the challenge available here. You won't be entered to win a copy of the book, but you can follow along with the tutorials and learn something new, which is always a win :)

You can keep track of all the shawl construction designs by visiting the project on my Ravelry page.

5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge: Day Three

Today's construction was the Asymmetrical Triangle Shawl, which weirdly and admittedly is one of my favorite design aesthetics. Being a former graphic designer, I'm drawn to features that aren't necessarily equal; just... balanced (white space is your friend!) And asymmetrical designs provide that for me. Plus, they're plain old interesting!

This shawl's construction is really easy, possibly even easier than the standard triangle shape, because all your increases are on one side of the project. I'm interested in eventually learning how to chart a design into this shape because I'm sure it's a little less than standard. Frenchie was actually showing us how to calculate/incorporate patterns into a shawl design last night on Periscope and it blew my mind; being a math hater, I can't help but feel I'm in over my head, but I'm also excited to learn at the same time.

So if I'm weeping into a frogged shawl design in my next podcast, you know what happened.

You can see the asymmetrical triangle in action by visiting my Lapidary project page on Ravelry. Lapidary is a shawl I knit last year and was provided in one of my monthly KnitCrate kits.

About the Challenge

Hosted by Frenchie of Aroha Knits, the "5 Shawls, 5 Days" challenge takes participants through a handful of standard shawl techniques, teaching us the basic construction of five shapes that will help us on our own journeys into shawl design. Anyone participating in the official challenge will be entered to win her upcoming ebook, "Forming Shawls and Their Charts", which will be available soon!

Found out about the challenge too late? There's now a DIY version of the challenge available here. You won't be entered to win a copy of the book, but you can follow along with the tutorials and learn something new, which is always a win :)

You can keep track of all the shawl construction designs by visiting the project on my Ravelry page.

5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge: Day Two

Today's shawl construction in the "5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge" was the crescent shawl, obviously different to yesterday's triangle shawl in shape mostly because increases are worked every row, giving us a more rounded, moon-like edge. I cast on this afternoon when I went home to walk the dog on my lunch break, finishing up once I was home and still had some daylight left to snap a decent photo.

So far, I'm loving this challenge because I'm learning a lot with very little (30 minutes max) time investment while doing something I enjoy. And I get to document my progress along the way by posting photos to Instagram and seeing what everyone else is creating, too, using the #5shawls5days hashtag. Nothing like a creative group activity to get you back in the game.

Hosted by Frenchie of Aroha Knits, the "5 Shawls, 5 Days" challenge takes participants through a handful of standard shawl designs, teaching us the basic construction of five shapes that will help us on our own journeys into shawl design. Anyone participating in the official challenge will be entered to win her upcoming ebook, "Forming Shawls and Their Charts", which will be available soon!

Found out about the challenge too late? There's now a DIY version of the challenge available here. You won't be entered to win a copy of the book, but you can follow along with the tutorials and learn something new, which is always a win :)

You can keep track of all the shawl construction designs by visiting the project on my Ravelry page.

5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge: Day One

Our first project was learning the basic construction of triangular shawls, beginning with the popular garter tab cast-on. 

Last week, on a whim, I signed up for the "5 Shawls, 5 Days Challenge" hosted by Frenchie of Aroha Knits.

It's not that I didn't already have enough to do outside of knitting, and I certainly have too many projects on the hooks and needles to count (you can watch my latest podcast episode for a not-so-brief glimpse into my WIPs), so what inspired me to cast on and learn basic shawl construction?

Well, I've designed accessories before, but almost always hats. As you know from following my blog, I've become obsessed with shawl knitting over the past year and was feeling ready to venture into the land of designing my own. Simple designs at first, of course, being that I'm still a total n00b at this venture, but nevertheless.

I've also needed a distraction to busy myself through some crazy times, so I took it as a sign that I needed to participate in this challenge when it randomly appeared on Frenchie's website while I was stalking her patterns.

Each day, we participants will spend 30 minutes knitting a mini shawl using the construction/shape designated for the day. Today (Monday)'s shape was the triangle shawl, which is one I've frequently knit up in other designers' patterns, so the shaping was familiar this time around. The instructions were clear and well-explained, as well as the methods for creating the shape (so you're not just following a pattern; you're understanding how you're making the resulting shape).

The best part is we'll be entered to win Frenchie's upcoming ebook about designing shawls, which she's basically a master at, so color me excited to learn from a guru. Just another reason to take part in it, right? Except it seems like there's a ton of competition based on the Instagram hashtags alone. Hmmm. I guess wish me luck!

You can keep track of all the shawl construction designs by visiting the project on my Ravelry page.