WIP Wednesday: Montego Shawl Bind Off!

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Well, welcome back to WIP Wed! This week, I'm binding off on my Montego Shawl!

Pattern is Montego by Cheri McEwen, and it's been quite a wonderful knit.  I wouldn't suggest this for a new knitter, though, for a few reasons.

1) The pattern has a few 'just fudge it here,' instructions, especially for the triangle shawl shapes.  In addition, sometimes, the charts are mirrored and sometimes they're not.  With a quick comparison to the written instructions, it was easy to figure out, but it could easily be confusing if you haven't made a shawl like this before. 

2) The pattern is -huge-!  It has full written instructions; plus, instructions for a whole bunch of different shawl shapes. . . but it's a huge pattern.  So, if skimming through a 20+ page PDF isn't your thing, this isn't the pattern for you. 

But; that customizability is actually a really nice pattern feature -- at least, I think so!    In addition, full written instructions are always appreciated!    

Plus, the pattern offers several notes on where you can stop when you're running out of yarn, and I, in fact, had to do just that.  I didn't make it to Row 42 (the last row of the border chart), but instead, ended up doing my bind-off after row 38.   It means the points of the border won't be quite as pronounced as the sample; but I'm ok with that!

Yarn is *Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Silk Lace in "Baby Boy" (I got this yarn back when it was just labeled 'Silk Lace', and the colourway has since been discontinued).  It's gorgeous yarn.  It has an annoying tendency to split with my 0.50 beading crochet hook, but pretty much any yarn will do that if I'm not cautious.   

It is, however, completely unforgiving of any tension mishaps on my part.  There's a few wonky spots on this shawl that I'm -really- hoping blocking will even out.   Usually, blocking hides most sins, so, here's hoping!

Beads are actually very old beads from Fire Mountain Gems, dug out of my stash of beads from my brief foray into jewelry making! These seem to be Snowflake Obsidian 6mm beads, and they've been interesting to add into the knitting, since they're larger then the usually seed beads I use.  There were a few dropped beads (I found one that had rolled into the kitchen last night and escaped the vacuum!) but it was basically no different then beading with seed beeds, except I think the hole is a little bit smaller.

Needles are my Addi 3.75 mm needles -- I'd honestly forgotten how much I love these needles! The finish is really nice, and they work quite well with the slippery-ness of the silk!  I can't wait to get this cast off -- I have plans for a sweater on these needles!

Well, thanks for reading along! And, as always, I'd love to see what you're working on, so, please, feel free to post links to your projects in the comments, so I can see all the amazing things that you folks make! Also, if you're working on one of my patterns, tag it as #sarahdawnsdesigns so I can find you on Social Media and stare at your awesome projects!

Until next week, and Happy Crafting!