A couple of months ago, a friend at church gave me this pile of yarn...with the Mexican Rainbow Shawl from the Prayer Shawl Companion book in mind. We're both making shawls for our church ministry and had fallen in love with this pattern. She surprised me by buying the yarn for it!

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Alas, try as I might, I couldn't make the yarn work with the pattern! The pattern is written for DK weight, and the Vanna's Choice just did not want to play nice!

So, I frogged what I had done (the center section and two of the orange sides) and went back to the drawing board...finally deciding on La La's Simple Shawl, which is a free download on Ravelry.

This pattern allowed me to incorporate each colored yarn and, IMHO, gives it a "South of the Border" feel.

Project Stats


Date Started – June 22
Date Completed – July 2


Yarn – Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice:
Rust – 17 yards
Scarlet – 34 yards
Eggplant – 55 yards
Colonial Blue – 76.5 yards
Olive -102 yards
Mustard – 229.5 yards
The pattern did not specify a bind-off, so I used EZ's Sewn Cast Off (http://weebleknits.blogspot.com/2003/05/stretchy-bind-offs.html). I like this bind off because it's stretchy and invisible. And it's easy (although tedious when you have 265 stitches!!).

Forgive the state of my hair. I woke up this morning and rushed to dress so I could get my daughter to take pictures before she heads to the beach for the day...hence no shower and no tamed hair (not that this is possible with living in Florida and having naturally-curly hair)...

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Beautifully done! The colors, stripes, and shape give the same feel as the other one. It looks great.

Oooo! Love this! You did a great job!

Pretty!! I really like the vibrant colors. Sure to brighten any day :0)

It's magnificent!

And thanks for all the tips, hints, yardages, and the link for the great bind off technique!

Great job!

WOW that colors are so vibrant. You did a great job!!!

That came out great! :thumbsup: I work with a lot of that same yarn, easily obtained in Hobby Lobby. Wonder if I could knit myself a great big Mexican poncho the same way? Hmmmm, may have to work that out.

BTW, I think your hair looks just fine.

Thanks Mason! You're so sweet. Fortunately, I deleted the picture that showed more of my hair. What a mess that morning!

I just did a quick google search and found several poncho patterns on Lion Brand's (http://www.lionbrand.com/cgi-bin/patternFinder.fcgi?language=&store=%2Fstores%2Flionbrand&cost=%2Fstores%2Flionbrand&search=1&craft=Knit&searchText=poncho&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=search) site.

Those colors are just perfect for both patterns! Lovely!

Beautiful! You did a great job and the colors are perfect.

Bambi

Wow!!! Absolutely gorgeous!!! LOVE those colors!

Beautiful work as always Nathalie! Very South of the Border!!

Very pretty. I :heart: The colors.
Did you notice this http://www.shawlministry.com/tip_pages/corrections.htm
I was looking at the booklet and found the corrections.

So bright and cheerful!

Very pretty. I :heart: The colors.
Did you notice this http://www.shawlministry.com/tip_pages/corrections.htm
I was looking at the booklet and found the corrections.

Yes, I did see that, but thank you for posting the link here.

I always look for pattern errata before starting a new project...just in case.

Thanks, all, for all of the nice compliments! This was an "iffy" project for me. I'm just glad it turned out okay.

:hug:

I always look for pattern errata before starting a new project...just in case.

:hug:

How do you do that?:??

How do you do that?:??

I check several places. First, I'll google "errata for such-and-such pattern."

I also look for the pattern on Ravelry. Once I find it, I read the comments about it. I'll even look at other people's projects to see what they had to say about it...maybe it ran big, maybe they had problems with a particular part of the pattern.

I just started working on a pair of socks, and through my google search, I found a link to a KAL on Ravelry. On the KAL page, I found information that helped me decipher part of the pattern, plus I was able to ask some questions when I ran into a problem.

I have to thank ArtLady for always encouraging us to read the pattern and do our homework. She helped me realize that to take my knitting to another level, I need to be put in a little bit of extra time prepping first.

gorgeous ...the color matching is coollllll

Lovely colors and beautiful knitting!