Tranquil Mist

The Tranquil Mist shawl, by Cindy Garland, is another kit that I had purchased.  I saw it at a yarn festival, and had to have it.  It came with the yarn, beads, stitch markers, and pattern.   I loved the color.  This was also to be my first go at a more intricate lace project, as well as using beads.

I enjoyed making this.  I hadn't really looked into the process of adding beads to a knit piece, and I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it is.  I used a small crochet hook.  I added a bead to the end of the hook, then grabbed the stitch that it was to be added to.  slid the bead onto the stitch, and then knit as you normally would.  The only part of using beads that I did not like was how much it slowed down progress.  It is a little more time consuming than I would normally like, although it does have a nice effect on the finished shawl.  They can be a little hard to see in the below picture since the beads are clear.

 The yarn used was Stunning Strings Studio Exceptional Lace in the Blissful colorway.  It is 100% merino wool.  It is very soft, and has a nice drape to it.

My finished shawl is smaller than many of the other completed projects seem to be.  I probably should have sized up, but I liked the look of the size 6 needles.  This piece was aggressively blocked in order to make it a little larger.

Lace is one of my favorite things to knit.  I enjoy that the rows change constantly.  There is no pattern to memorize.  You never really know how it's going to look until you have it blocking.  It's so fun to see the pattern emerge and the lace opening up.  It also knits up quickly compared to the size of the project.