Prayer Shawls Four and Five

Today I finished two more prayer shawls. The knitted one I've been working on since I finished the last one. The crocheted one I began Thursday night. To the left is the first attempt, and you can see the dropped stitch. When I tried to fix it I created a real mess and ended up tearing out about 25 rows and starting over. It also gave me a chance to correct the pattern. I made a lot of mistakes knitting this shawl, but in the process I learned quite a bit about knitting. I unknit a lot, and I picked up dropped stitches.

I got into a jam when I dropped a stitch shortly after joining the second skein. Fortunately I was visiting Mom, and she helped me get back on track. She also gave me a pair Honey's (my maternal grandmother) metal needles because she thought I might have an easier time because the yarn would slide better on them than on the bamboo needles I was using. Evidently I knit the way I crochet, tightly.

And here's the completed prayer shawl. The block pattern turned out well, if I do say so myself. I kept a tally of the rows, so I would know when to change the knit/purl sequence. Mom also gave me one of Honey's stitch counters. Now I have knitting needles and a counter from one grandmother and crochet hooks from the other.

Learning to knit continues to be an exercise in keeping my inner perfectionist locked in the basement.

I decided I didn't want to do fringe on this one. It's a tedious process. Instead I crocheted an edging on each end. I based it on one I found online, but it was pretty much of an experiment. Another learning process, which involved some tearing out and redoing.

Here's a close up of the edging, and you can also see the block pattern in more detail.

Caron Simply Soft
1 1/3 Skein
Dark Sage
Shawl - Size 13 Needles
Edging - Size K Crochet Hook

One of the things I've found working with the Simply Soft is that the shawls seem narrow. Although, these two that I've knit are within the measurements I've seen for prayer shawls. I'll be looking for patterns that are a bit wider for upcoming projects.

This is the crocheted shawl. It's a Bottom Up Shawl without Point that I found on the Crafty Beaver blog. It worked very quickly.

TLC Essentials Worsted Medium
Dark Thyme
1 1/4 Skein
Size P Crochet Hook
Double Crochet

I'm already working on shawls six, seven, and eight.