Machir Bay Shawl – Finished Knitting

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Surprisingly given it is the run up to Christmas and I really should be focusing on presents for everyone I have actually got a finished item to show you which I knit for myself. Admittedly I cast this on as my late #ChristmasEveCastOn last year* and has it finished and blocked in time to wear home from my parents after the festive period was over I never really wore it that much as it was just a bit too small. Bulky in front but not enough of it.

Machir bay shawl

Since I finished it I have been planning to put a border on it but never really got round to it. Since the weather has suddenly changed and got colder I thought now was just the right time to finally work out what I wanted to add as the border. I was always thinking of adding some form of lace border but I was never really sure what to put. In the end I decided on the border that came from the Dream Stripes shawl. I picked up on this one when searching Ravelry only to find I had pinned it in the beginning when I was looking for shawl patterns. And to be honest the finished shawl probably more closely resembles Dream Stripes than Machir Bay now but oh well what is in a name?

Machir bay shawl. (Modified) with dream stripes lace edging.   https://www.ravelry.com/projects/PippaKnight/machir-bay-shawl

I had wondered about what to use for the edging toying between the pale blue in the shawl the multi coloured green or another colour, bubblegum blue 4ply alpaca (which I was gifted by Shelia in a previous #StitchingSanta). It was though that changing colour would be too much and I didn’t really want to “waste” the blue as it was the skein that I brought back from our trip to Copenhagen and I kind of want to add it to something special.

Machir bay shawl. (Modified) with dream stripes lace edging.   https://www.ravelry.com/projects/PippaKnight/machir-bay-shawl
Machir bay shawl. (Modified) with dream stripes lace edging.   https://www.ravelry.com/projects/PippaKnight/machir-bay-shawl

So green it was. I hadn’t quite anticipated how much wool it would take up and so didn’t actually cast on with the large ball that I had and had to join balls of wool twice which does leave a slightly odd stripe in the middle of the lace where the second ball was much lighter in colour at the join than the previous colour changes.

Machir bay shawl
Machir bay shawl

I picked up and knitted the stitches that were bound off along the edge of the shawl adjusting my stitch count so that I had cast on an odd number of repeats of the lace pattern so that I would have a point corresponding with the point of the shawl. Some where along the line I must have got my counts off slightly as when blocking the shawl I realised that the point was off by a few stitches which whilst it was quite obvious when I was blocking it I’m sure will not be noticeable once I am wearing it. I also modified the increases in the edges of the lace pattern to lifting the stitch underneath up instead of YO increases as I found these left odd holes in the side of the lace in my swatch.

Machir bay shawl. (Modified) with dream stripes lace edging.   https://www.ravelry.com/projects/PippaKnight/machir-bay-shawl
Machir bay shawl. (Modified) with dream stripes lace edging.   https://www.ravelry.com/projects/PippaKnight/machir-bay-shawl

I think it is much more wearable now that it has a bit more length. Hopefully I will get a lot more use from it now, I just wish I had done it sooner (not that I would have got a huge amount of use out of it over the summer. Check out my Ravelry post on it here and give it a like if you want to 🙂

*note to self I need to work out what I am going to do this year and pack it. I might finally get round to casting on my big Cable blanket but I really need a set of larger needles for my interchangables as Nikki hasn’t finished with her ones yet.

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4 thoughts on “Machir Bay Shawl – Finished Knitting

  1. Pingback: Monday Sevens #83 – Beads and Barnacles

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