WIP Wednesday: Yarn Chicken with the Fire and Light Shawl

 

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 Welcome back to another WIP Wednesday, where I've been frantically knitting on the Fire and Light Shawl.  The sooner I get it done, tested and edited, the sooner the profits for the shawl can be donated to the St. Anne's Church Restoration Fund.

And, it turns out, the motifs that inspired this shawl (it's gone through a few iterations, so it's not quite as literal), did, in fact, survive the fire, at least in part.  Small miracles, right?

Now, right now, it doesn't look like much.  There are 400+ stitches scrunched up on my *circular needle, and, this also, of course, hasn't been blocked yet.  But, the idea of this shawl is a starburst motif, cutting through a line of fire.

The starburst motif starts as a series of rings, done in mesh and stocking stitch at the centre back neck of the shawl, before heading down the shawl in five points, with the tips of those points cutting across a lace flame stitch.

Yarn is Dye-Version's Merino Lace, in "Windstorm" and sadly, Dye-Version seems to have gone out of business.  This is deep stash, bought at the Toronto Knitters Frolic (I think?), but I've definitely had it for a while, and now, I'm very, very glad I hung onto it! That said, it makes my game of Yarn Chicken even more dangerous.  I'm on Row 180 of 203 (not counting the garter-stitch bottom edge), and I'll definitely be cutting this close.  But there's absolutely no way of me getting more of this yarn. There are only 4 people on Ravelry who have this in their stash, and the odds of getting a trade are pretty darn low.   I didn't think I'd use up 1000 yards of yarn like this, but, apparently that's a serious threat right now!

That said, if I have to, I can eek out the garter stitch edging in a complimentary colour.  Not my first choice, but, it's do-able at need.   If I were to suggest any kind of substitute, something easy to acquire (as least here in North America), is *KnitPicks Gloss Lace.  While it's not 100% Merino (tangent: Knit Picks did have their Shadow Lace Yarn, which was 100% Merino, but it's since also been discontinued, and I miss it!)  I've knit with it before and really enjoyed it, and it works very well for shawls!

Needles are my 2.75 mm *Nickle-Plated Circular Needles from Knit Picks.   I had originally planned this shawl on my *4 mm Bamboo Circulars, but, after swatching, I'm glad I dropped down to the smaller needles.  I'm much, much happier with the look of the fabric that I'm getting.  If I have one grumble, about the needles it's that the lace very occasionally catches on the join between the needle tip and the cable - but I have needles that are far, far more expensive where that also happens, so, I'm not fussed about it at all.

 I have a lot of knitting time coming up, so, hopefully I can finish this over the next week. What are you working on for this WIP Wednesday - share your projects, here in the comments, or, on Discord!