UPDATE 1 below

Just started a baby hemlock ring blanket today and I’m 20 rows in. The middle is always the hardest and this one is especially so, being so small. I’m using baby wool in white, obviously, on a 2.75 mm circular needle. This is the second hemlock ring for me, but it’s the first using such fine wool. I added the tape measure, to display just how small that center circle is. I’m going to have to add quite a few feather and fan rows, once I get there, but I’m really excited to see this when it’s done!

UPDATE 1:

The inner flower ring is complete, now onto the feather and fan section!

Special note: left in the Orange Woogly Thing, for reference

Up until now, the ‘haruni’ shawls I’ve made have been for others but this one is all my own!

Knitted in Lion’s Brand “Fishermen’s Wool”, in “Nature’s Brown”, on 5mm needles, this is super cozy. Very pleased with it

This is my second “Haruni” [Emily Ross pattern here]. Knitting went very smoothly this time around, in part because I was more familiar but I also think that opting to use a safety line made it, well, safer

This shawl is in a hand-dyed green Chilean wool, from Araucania Yarns, called Ranco Multy. I used a 4.5 mm bamboo circular needle, and finished with an Icord method.

Pictures really don’t do this thing justice. Needless to say, I’m incredibly pleased with it. It’s a beautiful pattern and, despite some difficulties and what the hell moments along the way, it knitted up wonderfully. So much so that I intend to tackle it again, perhaps using more expensive wool, and perhaps deepen the inner pattern by a few more repeats. The shawl is deep enough that it comes down to the bottom of my back and reaches my elbows, but it would also manage quite well as a sort of a scarf. Definitely a keeper.

 
From beginning to end:

That went by a lot faster than I thought it would! The leafy border, while taking up a lot more yarn, is definitely less finicky to knit, and I flew through it in no time. Which left (cue scary music!) binding off. Okay, so that’s not really scary, but I did opt for a method I wasn’t familiar with: the icord. Nope, never heard of it. There were two options: crochet and icord, and I’ve kinda got crochet down so I opted for the other. You know, once I started, it made perfect sense and is a method I’ll likely be using again, definitely for this project.

It’s obviously been a bit more than three days since my last haruni post but that’s because I had some serious catching up to do! I dropped a few (a LOT!) of stitches during a sneezing fit one night and had to go back quite a bit in order to get around them. One thing I’ve taken to heart from the event, especially when working with lace patterns: ALWAYS use a safety line. Always. Every 4 rows – BOOM! – safety line. It seems like a hassle – until you need it – and then it’s mightily appreciated. You can see mine in the pic above. I used about a yard of green crochet cotton and strung it through all the stitches. That way, when something stupid occurred, I could rip it out to that line and put all the stitches – EASILY! – back on the needle. I’ll never work without one again. One interesting thing about it: it made me exceedingly careful afterward. You’d think it would be the other way around, but no. I suppose it serves as a constant reminder that it’s possible to mess up.

In any case, the above pic shows the complete “fern” section of the shawl. I wanted to get past it to the outer leafy edge last night, so that’s where I got. To round one of the leafy border. Supposedly the rest knits up fairly quickly. Supposedly

Ended up having to rip it back some after I lost a stitch along the way and couldn’t make it up without losing the pattern. But it’s okay! No, really By the time I got to the point where I ripped it back, the pattern had made loads of sense, so now I can do it using just the chart, which is always nice.

I’ve also gone back to using my itty bit of coloured cotton for a marker instead of the fancy schmancy legit marker I had started with. Great idea, those markers, but they have no give and they drag along the needle. Sometimes the simplest thing  – and the cheapest thing – really is the best thing. So it’s back to bits of string for me

I’m about 1/4 of the way through the leafy middle here.

“Haruni” is a triangular shawl pattern by Emily Ross [Ravelry page here], featuring lots of leafy/ferny goodness. I’ve never done a triangular shawl like this before, from the top down, started in the middle. This one’s supposed to be on the difficult side, but it looks gorgeous. So I’m taking a run at it, using some plain white finger-weight wool. White is nice to work with because it’s light enough to make the stitches clear to see.

“Haruni” means “grandmother” in Quenyan, an Elven language. I’ll take pictures of my progress and document it here.