Today we are celebrating our finished Cois Farraige shawls and what a knit-along it has been.

It’s bittersweet when a knit-along comes to a close. We are all proud of our finished shawls and our new friends we’ve made but our group grows quieter as we cast on new projects and start afresh. But don’t worry there will be another knit-along soon!

It always amazes me how different our collective shawls are and also the different stumbling blocks for each knitter. So for this MKAL, I’m going to give a quick run down of the weekly releases so that knitters who are taking this shawl as part of the Teachable Project Workshops can knit along with us no matter when they cast on.

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Week 1 – Setting up and working the Cois Farraige Stitch Pattern

Ah, the excitement that came with week 1 and the cast on of a new project. Some of the MKAL participants flew through this release within a few hours! You know who you are😉

This week was all about getting your basics right. You also got to see how your colour combination was going to dominate your shawl. This section also gives you a feel for how and when you can modify the stripes within your shawl. This image by K. Spertzel is a great example of what your shawl will look like as you start and then the second image by C. Andrus is what your shawl will look like by the end of this clue.

Week 2 – Main Section.

This is always where things get a bit meaty. You’re confident in your stitch pattern. You start to relax and yup, this is where Carol likes to add a little bit of zing.

Personally, there are times when I can almost picture Carol with a sparkle in her eye as she works an interesting construction technique. It always seems to come right when she knows you’re ready to kick it up a notch even if you don’t quite know it yet.

With Cois Farraige the tricky part in this section is keep the stitch pattern lined up. Here people a common questions was “Did the row gauge for the lace section matter if it was a little off?”

The difference is row gauge for the lace shouldn’t be a problem, it’s striped so it won’t impact other gauges as it stands alone and it’ll just change the length/width a little.

This close up from J. Trotta was great for helping people in our group to see the alignment.

Week 3 – Edging and Blocking

It’s safe to say that week 2 took the brunt of the knitting and once you were sure of your knitting, you can just sit back and relax with your favourite podcast and work away.

Week 3 was a nice relaxing close to finishing and casting off your shawl. One of the main advantages of taking part in a KAL is that you have knitting accountability buddies with a friendly deadline. Meaning you’re less likely to leaving a long cast off dwindling on the needles.

Here you are picking up your edge stitches and choosing between a picot or i-cord bind off. The majority of knitters seemed to choose the i-cord for finishing this shawl. Take a deep breath – the edging only runs along the top edge of the shawl and uses about 10 grams of your chosen colour in Blasta Light.

Here are some more of those fabulous shawls that you will see floating around instagram, ravelry and our facebook group.

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A special note from Carol:

Thank you all so much for a wonderful MKAL. I had as much fun as knitters did watching the shawls emerge. I haven’t seen the new Blasta Light colours combined before and it was glorious to see the combinations come together!

-Carol

I really hope you all enjoyed this mystery knit-along and I hope to see you all again soon for our summer KAL.