You know how you have that itch to retry a project when the previous attempt doesn’t work out the way you want it to?
Yeah. This iteration of the Moondancer Shawl by Dominique Trad was one of those projects.
The very first bash at the project was a yellow-and-grey number, which was made so I could wear it to the Harry Potter Feast event. Yes. I was a Hufflepuff at the time. And no, it was not worth the money I shelled out for the ticket to that event.
Since then, a couple of things have happened. Firstly, I found myself in posession of more yarn than I had proper storage for (and needed to use up). Second (and most importantly), I am no longer a Hufflepuff. Yes. I am now rocking the red and gold of Gryffindor house.
Which means that a) the Hufflepuff-inspired shawl is no longer appropriate for my wardrobe and b) I have a pretty valid reason to have a bash at the Moondancer Shawl.
First things first. For this iteration of the Moondancer Shawl, I had my heart set on a primarily pink colour palette. I knew that I had to use my skein of Three Cats Yarn in Soft Peach as the main colour. Which left the choices for the 2 contrast colours wide open.
Before I had even committed to re-doing the Moondancer Shawl, I had made using up as much of my stash as I could one of my goals for 2025 . Meaning that all of my yarn choices for this project had to come from my yarn stash. I ended up going with Three Cats Yarn in Magnolia Speckle for the dark contrast colour and Purrmaid for the light contrast colour.
To owe the truth, it was a textbook case of “trust the process”. I was initially unsure if I had made the right choice, but it started to make more sense the further along I got in the project.
I had a moment of rage-frogging towards the end of the project. I had messed up one stitch sequence in the third lace panel. One. Stitch. Sequence. After trying (and failing) to salvage the row in progress, I ended up frogging the the entire thing and restarting the project. SMH.
I had finally finished casting off the shawl 3 days prior to the publication of this post. That was a trial in itself, because the cast off was a picot cast off. Yep. Lovely stuff.
In terms of yarn leftovers, I had more than half of the Purrmaid left. For the Magnolia Speckle, I technically used 2 balls which leftovers from other projects. I completely used up one (yay!!!) and made it through 1/4 of the other. The 2nd ball itself started this project at about 1/3 of its original volume. As for the Soft Peach, I used 2 balls.1 was leftover from another project, which I used up. The other was a full skein/cake. I finished this project with a little less than half a skein.
After finishing this shawl, I feel like I need a break from shawls and similarly shaped projects for a while. While it was a largely enjoyable project, the next couple of projects that I do should be anything but a shawl (or scarf for that matter).
Project Summary
Pattern: Moondancer Shawl by Dominque Trad
Yarn: Three Cats Yarn Soft Sock in Soft Peach, Magnolia Speckle and Purrmaid
Needles: ChiaoGoo interchangeable needles with the 4mm tips
