Girasole is a large circular shawl, which can also be knit (with worsted or aran weight yarn) as a blanket. I knit my Girasole to be a shawl, using Noro Kureyon Sock yarn in the S40 colorway. The shawl required 3.6 skeins (1663 yards) of yarn. I did not like the "pointy" edging in the pattern, so I improvised another knit-on edging with fewer points. When I was blocking the shawl, I realized why Mr. Flood had used the pointy edging. More points (640 of them in the edging in the pattern) would have made blocking the shawl much easier. Below is a photo of my shawl during blocking.
The shawl is big---big enough that I had to put my blocking boards around the perimeter because I didn't have enough of them to lay beneath the shawl. My improvised edging had far fewer points than the edging in the pattern, and as a result, it was more difficult to block. My shawl is an oval, not a circle. (Major axis is 75 inches, minor axis is 70 inches.) The difference is not apparent when I'm wearing it, but if I knit this shawl again, I'll use the edging in the pattern.
I love the play of colors in the shawl. The edging pulls all the colors together, show- casing them in a way the shawl, for all its beauty, does not.
Girasole is a fun and interesting knit, but it isn't a quick project. I started my Girasole last year in mid August, worked on it fairly steadily until October (through Chart F), then ignored it to work on holiday gifts. I picked the shawl up again in September, worked on it until I was ready to start the edging, then set it aside for a couple weeks until I had mentally worked out the edging pattern. Once I decided on the edging, I finished the shawl in less than a week.
What are you knitting? Are you finished old projects or starting new ones?
Susannah
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