Alaria Shawl by Leah Thibault

Hi Knitters,

I experienced a major learning curve on my first venture into shawl knitting.  My only prior projects were the very basic one-skein "Two-step shawlettes" that I knit earlier this summer.  Leah Thibault's "Alaria" is the real deal.  A triangle, three-chart beauty, but a tad complicated for a novice to the lace shawl.  I jumped in way too quickly and a little over-confidently and I won't tell you how many times I frogged a number of  rows -- which is neither quick nor fun when knitting lace patterns.  But I am persistent, if not quick, and finally -- crying uncle at the umpty-ninth frog -- I added several stitch markers.  Duh!  It went much better and much more quickly after that.  I could see the logical sequence of the rows and the transitions from chart to chart flowed smoothly.  I began to see why knitters get hooked on this shawl thing.

First here's a look at the original from the Quince and Company website so you can see why I fell in love with "Alaria." 

My photos are much less professional and much, much less artistic --in fact they are not artistic at all -- but here is my first "Alaria":

The yarn is Quince and Company's "Tern" in the color Kelp.  The color is hard to capture.  In some lighting it looks green, other lighting more gold and I like that, kind of a chameleon color.

Don't look too closely!  Notice in the photo on the Q&C website that the pattern calls for nice strong points.  As the instructions suggested I used a needle two sizes larger for the bind off, but still my edge didn't have nearly enough ease to make the points.  The next time I will go up three or four needle sizes.   Yes, I could have ripped out and bound off again but I was ready to be done with this one.

If you look closely at this kind of blurry photo I am wearing the shawl wrong side out.  I have no explanation other than that I took it late in the day and only realized the wrong side out thing as I uploaded the picture.

The photo above is a truer depiction of the color.  

This shawl is off to surprise a special friend in time for the cold weather to swoop in.   She loves me and won't think a thing about a few irregularities and the lack of points.

I really enjoyed knitting with Tern.  It is a high quality yarn for a reasonable price. The Quince and Company website is outstanding and I could work my way through each one of their well-selected designs.  They are timelessly classic with a new and modern feel and their yarns are basic workhorse yarns in a very appealing color pallet.  However, I do wish they were available at my LYS.  I know that it helps the small manufacturer to keep prices down by selling directly to the consumer.  But I also know what it is like not to have a LYS to squish the yarns and see the real color before buying and to receive personal help from the experienced knitters who work there.  I hope that as Quince and Company grows they will be able to offer yarns on a wholesale as well as retail basis.