21 October 2011

FO! 3036

Wow.  It's over.  What a marathon.  Final bead count.... drum roll please.....
3036!!!

Seriously, I did a double take after I added it all up...
My very technical 'back of an envelope' method of calculating.

The remaining beads at the bottom.
 Stats: Ravelled here.

Yarn:  Circulo Yarns - Clea, which I won in a blog comp over at Punto RevesThank you Natalia!!

Measurement:
Unblocked measured 143cm (~56") x 62cm (~24") (130cm (~51") x 52cm (~20") before the edging)

Wet blocked to ~178cm (70") x ~89cm (35") as instructed in the pattern.

I blocked this by soaking for about an hour first in warm water with a bit of detergent, then rinsing well in warm water, rolling up in a towel to absorb the extra water and finally stretching the hell out of it and pinning it to some cardboard covered with towels.

Many beads gave their lives in the blocking of this shawl.
Before blocking, scrooched up.
Last time I demonstrated my blocking prowess, a couple of eagle eyed commenters spied my ninja turtle towel I use for blocking, despite the fact that it was wrong side up.  Here it is in all its glory!  
The Kitten approves of this highly valuable retro artefact.
Other fun facts:
This took me 62 days to make, most of it done during my commute to and from work.  That's about 15m (~ 50') and about 50 beads a day!!  Row 7 of the border was probably the most painful, I added a beat to every sc, dc and tr. 

"Design Feature"  (read: mistake....)

I'm pretty annoyed at myself as I made a similar mistake that I did last time.  The spine was straight thist ime, but for some reason, when it came time to make the border, I didn't have the right amount of shells and 5-ch spaces.  The edging is made up of a large motif and a small motif, and because the number of pattern repeats wasn't right, I had to fudge it to get the motifs to work.  It's not noticeable, just annoying.  There was no way I was going to frog and re-do those beads because if it!

Anyways, I love my shawl, and I think I'm addicted to crocheting lace (just trying to settle on a pattern for the leftover yarn from the wedding shawl... leaning towards the South Bay Shawlette)

And now onto the pretty pictures!

Before and after!

Trying to casually look at the river while my sister takes photos, hoping no one from work also on their lunch break sees me and judges my impromptu photo shoot.
Thanks for stopping by.  Check out more FOs at Tami's Amis!

14 comments:

  1. It looks incredible :) Love the beads, but damn that sounds like a lot of work!

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  2. WOW! That is amazing. Such a lot of beads but definitely worth it.

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  3. Wow, that looks amazing. My own dahlia is languishing unfinished, and I hadn't decided what to about beads. I haven't done beading on a shawl before, but yours looks so fab I might have to try.

    Love the before and after blocking pictures. What a difference!

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  4. Your shawl is gorgeous!! Boy that is a lot of beads but totally worth the extra work.

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  5. A very ambitious commuting project, but you've done beautifully. And it looks like just the perfect size!

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  6. They would just be jealous of your gorgeous shawl!!

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  7. That is a gorgeous shawl. The beads really add sparkle.

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  8. Just magnificent! Love the towel too!! ;-D

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  9. wow it's beautiful! you did an amazing job =)

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  10. Stunning! You did a great job, and it looks super snazzy.

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  11. Beautiful work- just lovely.
    Hope you enjoy wearing it too.
    Thank you for visiting my blog- it's just lovely here too!
    Have a great week.
    X

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  12. I just popped over from Ravelry, WOW this is an amazing piece of work! You must have the most incredible patience, 3036 beads!! Well done, it's absolutely gorgeous! :-) x
    Nanita

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