Crescent Swallowtail Shawl with My Handspun

I actually used my handspun to knit something! I really like the Crescent Swallowtail Shawl - the adaptation by Susan Rainey of Evelyn A Clark's 'Swallowtail Shawl'.

I've knit it a couple of other times using hand dyed norbouillet yarn,

and using Yarn Indulgences Indulgent Fingering yarn.


I don't even remember what this fibre was but it is lovely - if I do say so myself.

It really is all about the blocking. I run the bendable blocking wires through the main points and pinned out the points and then each picot. The picot edge was *CO2, BO5. Repeat from * making sure the 5th BO is on the point at the end of the k1 column between the yarn over columns. I bought the blocking wires several years ago here on Etsy.

I love these colours together.

The wall by my front door is great for displaying my knitting projects. Stuff just sticks to the bricks.

You'll note it doesn't scoop up in the middle of the straight edge because there is a 34 row garter stitch tab to start.

The first pattern is called 'Budding Lace' and is a fairly easy 8-row pattern.

Then there's the 'Lily of the Valley' pattern using 'nupps' (rhymes with scoops). I was supposed to do it twice but knew I wouldn't have enough yarn so I only did rows 1 - 12 of that chart (B).

The lace edging was supposed to be deeper but I eliminated a few rows - again because I was running out of yarn.

I used a picot bindoff mentioned above. I didn't have enough yarn for that so I rifled my stash for laceweight or fingering weight yarn and found a skein of KnitPicks Gloss Lace in the Port colourway. 

It wasn't an exact match but good enough, given the variegation in the handspun. It also made for a very consistent bindoff.

I really love this pattern. This is not the last time I'll be using it.