Print O’ The Wave Stole

Tell me that you all have experienced the Magical Knitting Project. You know. That project that, as you’re working on it, seems interminable, or impossible. There is no way it’s going to turn out as well as you hope. Then magically (with sparkles!) it is finished and fabulous and lovely. That’s my Print O’ The Wave Stole (free pattern).

Knitting the Print O’ The Wave Stole

Making this stole was one such Magical Knitting Project for me. I kept working on it, and chugging along, and then getting distracted by other projects and work deadlines and putting this down. The first half felt like a constant battle. I couldn’t get into a rhythm with the pattern, I constantly had to keep looking at it and working around mistakes I made. An important note, these are mistakes that I made as I was learning it, because I totally rocked the second half of this stole. Operator error, not pattern error.

Finally, it reached the point that I just Could. Not. Stand. having it linger as an unfinished object anymore. Once you get the hang of it, it is an easy pattern. I knew that I could finish it quickly if I just sat down and knit. So I buckled down and churned it out, and well…

That’s some purty magic right there. (Also pretty is my friend Nicole, who graciously agreed to be my model for this project.) I think it’s amazing. I’m busy plotting all kinds of outfits with which to wear it. It may get its “public debut” when I travel to the Lone Star State very soon to visit a few of my knitting friends.

Details

Cast on: October 29, 2009
Bind off: July 29, 2010
Yarn: Tri’Coterie Merino Tencel Lace and Kaalund Classic Two
Size: used the numbers for the 65″ size. body measures ~28″ flat.
Modifications: I didn’t make any intentional modifications aside from having to use a different yarn to finish it. I would suggest, if you’re limited on yardage, to do fewer repeats of the center panels. The pattern calls for 17 repeats of the center panel, but as you can see, this stole comes out quite large; Nicole and I are about the same height (5’8″ish) and the finished, blocked stole is at least 6′ long, if not closer to 6’6″. You could easily get away with only doing 14 repeats of each side of the center panel and probably finish the whole thing in under 900 yds of yarn. I can’t stress that “probably” enough.

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Upcoming Blogging Plans

I have plans for some upcoming blog posts, and I thought I’d list them out here as both a reminder for myself and an opportunity for anyone to chime in with things they might want to hear about first (or hear about, period).

• Book reviews. I’ve got a ton of knitting books and in an effort to get myself to look through them all thoroughly (as opposed to the “ooh shiny” version that I did before, which prompted me to pick up the book and bring it home with me) as well as hopefully maybe weeding some out of my collection, I figured I could share my opinions about said books.
• My Boteh scarf (which I keep wanting to call a “bokeh” scarf). Should probably block that out.
• Holiday gift-knitting, but perhaps more importantly, holiday gift-receiving (aka, a list of things to hand out to your dearly beloveds, in hope that they will actually gift you things useful to the pursuit of knitting; you’re on your own if you’re going to ask for a car or new pair of roller skates).
• Progress notes on my Loop Entrelac Tank, specifically my attempts at working out entrelac to get a fabric that I like.
• …various and sundry tings that I should write down as soon as I remember what they were.