I knitted a shawl!

I can’t quite believe it, but I have knitted a shawl! In my mind this shawl will always be known as the Fargo shawl as it was knitted over about 5 episodes of the second series, but its actual name is  Quaker Yarn Stretcher Boomerang (paid pattern).

The story behind the shawl is pretty straightforward. At Christmas I was lucky enough to be given the most beautiful ball of Noro Kureopatora colourway 1024.

It was so brightly coloured and really tactile, very soft and squishy. It is 100% wool. I really wanted to do this yarn justice.

First off all I thought I would try a Noro stripe scarf and I bought a contrasting skein in green but it did not look at all like I imagined it would and quickly abandoned the idea.

Next I tried a Hitchhiker scarf in cream and Noro stripes. Oh dear. Less said about that, the better.

So I had a look (spent hours) on Ravelry and found the Quaker Yarn Stretcher pattern and decided it was ‘easy’ enough for me to do, that I had enough yarn and that it would not take me months to make, so off I went.

The shawl is supposed to be knitted loosely which was a challenge for me as I am quite a tight knitter. The yarn is DK but I used a 6mm circular needle to give it the right gauge. I did wonder how the yarn would knit up as it was thick and thin in places but it wasn’t a problem.

So here is my first knitted shawl…

I had a hard time taking pictures of this shawl. There was lots of hilarity when I asked my brother to take some pictures of me in the garden. I am just not very good a posing for the camera. My mum even had to help out!

It was not obvious looking at the wound ball that this wool had such dramatic colur changes and although I had googled it, I loved watching the colours emerge. In my mind, it looks like a sun setting over a deep, dark ocean. I wonder what you see.

I will use this pattern again. I have the other ball of Noro I can use but looking at all of the projects on Ravelry (nearly 2000!), it is a very adaptable pattern.

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