Leftover Uradale wool shawl

For the last two weeks I have been knitting up the wool left over from the Uradale version of this year's Shetland Wool Week hat. As I posted last month, the hat  used very little of the 5 balls of wool in the kit. Rather than knit more hats, I found a shawl pattern in Martha Waterman's Traditional Knitted Lace Shawl and adapted it.

Her 'garter lace triangular shawl' has alternate bands of simple lace and garter stitch.

I began trying out the pattern as written, intending to work it in stripes of the five colours, but decided pretty quickly that the texture wasn't right for the wool (left).

Instead of the garter stitch bands, I worked bands of stocking stitch with a simple Fair Isle pattern, no 56 from Mary Jane Mucklestone's 200 Fair Isle Designs.  I began with the darkest colour, and worked bands of pattern using each of the other four colours in turn between the lace. It seemed to work.

I then moved to the next darkest colour and repeated the process, increasing as indicated in the pattern.

This worked in so far as it rationed the wool nicely  but the similarity of three of the colours didn't make for great contrast. I nevertheless continued with the scheme. Subtlety isn't a bad thing, and this was, after all, an exercise in using leftover yarn.

Making it up as I went along, and with the best part of a full ball of the dark brown, I inserted a contrasting  band  between each background colour change.

I liked the effect, so continued, working each ball until it ran out.  I soon became concerned that the shawl would end up too long and narrow to drape comfortably over the shoulders

so I began to increase at the end of every row instead of every second row. I couldn't really tell on my needles whether this was working, but stuck with it.

Obviously, as the rows got longer, the colours would not cover as many rows, but the colour sequence largely worked, I finished with a couple of dark rows of lace and cast off with this the only left over wool. Maybe I could have managed one more row - but was not risking it.

I blocked it on my dining table, which is 1.5m x 1m, so my increases seem to have worked. It is a decent size for a shawl.

It took 36 hours to dry and smelled strongly of sheep while wet, even  washed in woolwash. I hope this doesn't persist when worn. I’m airing it outside for a while and will store it with lavender.

Both the shawl and the hat are up for grabs, for gifts or trading tables. 

I find it amusing that the leftover wool produced something much larger than the original hat! I'm pretty satisfied with the result. I have a substantial stash of wool, and do not want to add to it. 

I've had much joy in the making. This is also a versatile pattern that I'm sure I will use again.