The first Haapsalu shawl completed

Two months have passed in a flash and changed summer to autumn, now finally the shawl started at the end of this post is really finished. Everything was made following the steps of a true Haapsalu shawl and I'm very glad I attended a short course last winter with Aime Edasi, who showed all the necessary techniques.




Knitting the centre part was very enjoyable, but all the finishing from sewing to gathering the edge stitches after blocking - not my favourite pastime at all.




The stitch pattern used is Karukellakiri (Pasqueflower pattern), I like its varied texture. Made four pattern repeats in width and 19 lengthwise to obtain the standard size, but the shawl seems a bit small. Rinsing with cold water might have been a mistake, this made the wool stretch significantly less on the blocking frame.




The seam is not quite perfect, there are some occasional larger spaces in it. These are probably caused by looser edge stitches, next time I will focus harder on the end stitches of every row and pull them more tightly around the needle, maybe that will do the trick.
This made me a little unhappy first, but I'm sure nobody will notice it while the shawl is worn. Besides, I discovered that the seams look similar in the Haapsalu Shawl book (blocking frame photos).




The yarn used for the shawl is Midara Micro in natural white (shade No. 025, pure wool). Not the easiest lace yarn to knit, because it's not very smooth and tends to dangle easily, but ripping it was quite possible - had to try this a little along the road. Perhaps the yarn is not quite thin enough either, but the result seems fine and the shawl has a better hold than those knitted with merino wool.

Very old yarn stash members

Sometimes things just appear in unexpected places, like these spools of grey wool I found in an antique store among furniture and other non-knitting items. Each of these holds more than 100 grams cobweb weight wool.
The large black spool is not antique, but definitely vintage and acquired from someone's old stash. There is more than a kilo of cobweb wool on it!
No time to be bored in the foreseeable future - all of that should be enough for at least thirteen shawls.