Sugar Plum Shawl by Mina Philipp

I’m so pleased to present another test knit shawl. This is my third (the second is a secret test so I will post about that when the pattern is released). I was honoured to be able to test this pattern for Mina Philipp from the Knitting ExPat You Tube podcast. I had seen this gorgeous shawl Mina designed for her sister in law’s wedding, and as I have three weddings to attend myself this summer, I was looking for something simple, yet fancy enough to dress up. The Sugar Plum Shawl fit the bill perfectly.

I consider myself to be a beginning lace knitter, so an overall lace design was a tad intimidating to me. Fortunately, the lace patterns were very intuitive and I had no trouble at all. I took quite detailed notes for my Ravelry project page, so head over there if you want the nitty gritty on yarn usage and everything else.

The shawl has an interesting construction in that it combines traditional crescent shaping with wedge or semi-circular increases. The pattern instructions were very clear and easy to follow.

 

I managed to find a 150gr skein of fingering weight yarn – it’s not a common put up here in North America. I used a new to me yarn from Yarn Indulgences called Indulgent Grand Style in the colourway Latte. It is 80% British merino wool and 20% silk that is dyed not far from Toronto. This is a terrible photo, but I had to include it. Isn’t that label so stinking cute? I had never worked with silk before and in fact didn’t even realize there was silk in the yarn until I went to write up my project page. That would explain the “silkiness” I felt in my hands as I was working and the wonderful drape in the shawl. I will definitely be stalking my LYS to get a couple of skeins to make a fingering weight sweater.

The skein was heavy and weighed in at 160 grams, which was lucky because I used a total of 156 grams to make the medium sized shawl. I did go up one needle size as I am a tight knitter, so you would probably be fine if you stick to the suggested needle.

I wet blocked the shawl and pinned it out to open up the lace. I used my new flexible blocking wires and they worked beautifully. I’ve been asked several times about the wires and other equipment I use to block so I will do a separate blog post about those items next.

 

 

 

One thing I learned during this test knit is that I could let go of my knitting perfectionism. I will typically rip back to fix a mistake if I notice it later. If I know it will bug me later, it is worth the time to fix it now. As I was happily knitting away on the lace section I noticed that the stitch marker I had placed to indicate the public side seemed to be on the wrong side. Huh? Looking back I saw that I had completely eliminated one of the eyelet rows (Note to self – very late night lace knitting is not a good idea). Can you see it there in the middle section? Hard to tell unless I told you right? And it still looks good because (luckily) I made the mistake in the 3rd of 5 eyelet sections so it’s balanced. Plus, when worn it’s even harder to see.

I admit that I agonized over whether or not to go back and fix it. When I test knit, I feel a real responsibility to the designer to actual test the pattern as written. This time I decided that I would be the test knitter who tested the forgiving nature of the pattern. I had already picked up an extra stitch a couple of times in the main body sections. That was so easy to correct in the first row of the next repeat and you cannot tell – believe me I looked.

I did not have time to schedule a proper photo shoot with my friend Flora, so I asked my partner if he would take some photos. He doesn’t enjoy doing it, but also never says no. I told him that the shawl was more important than me and to please make sure it looked good. I guess he decided I didn’t need to look good at all because he did not include my face in any of the photos! Perhaps he was getting back at me for giving him too many instructions….

 

 

Overall, I highly recommend this pattern. Check out the gorgeous finished objects from the other test knitters for ideas on how to use different yarns and multiple colours. And check out their podcasts as well.

Tracie from the Grocery Girls podcast
Nessa from the Killtocraft podcast
Lea from the All You Knit is Love podcast
Sarah who is sarahjg2 on Ravelry

Thank you again to Mina for allowing me to test knit this lovely design. Check out her other patterns for sale on Ravelry. The Sugar Plum Shawl pattern was released yesterday on Ravelry so go grab a copy now. You won’t regret it. You can even join in on the Sugar Plum KAL happening over in the Knitting ExPat Ravelry group until August 31st.

What about you? Are you a knitting perfectionist? I’d love to hear about times you did or didn’t go back to correct a mistake in your knitting.