Tuesday, April 22, 2008

I'm not a shawl person, but...

...I am IN LOVE with this:

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl from IK (too lazy to get up and check issue)
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Silk, 3.1 skeins*
Needles: Addi Turbo lace size 5
Modifications: bigger yarn than laceweight, nupps done as slip 3, p2tog, psso instead of the dreaded p5tog
Discussion: I got coerced into doing some charity knitting. "NO PRESSURE, but if you can do something for this auction I can get some letters of recommendation written on Hayden's behalf for Currey Ingram." (Yeah, this girl is not really someone I'd call a friend.) I figured something like a Swallowtail Shawl knit out of a very luxurious yarn in a very pretty, springy color would get top dollar, so I went to work. I chose something bigger than the laceweight the pattern called for so that I'd have a better chance of getting it done in time. And I tried, honestly I did. I wanted so badly to get it done - I do not like making promises that I have to break. But there was just no way. The San Antonio trip for that damn basketball game really cut into my knitting time, but I think even if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have gotten it done. It turned out okay, though. I don't need the letters since we're not even applying for CI after all, and I really fell in love with this shawl. It was pretty before I blocked it, but then the detail came out:

(Man, I wish my camera skillz were as good as Jared's. I try for the artsy closeup and I end up with crap. But I tried.)

This was my second lace project, but definitely not my last. What shawl next? Hanami? Icarus? Kimono?

* - I say .1 because with 2 rows left before binding off, I ran out of yarn. Bummer! The shop I bought the yarn from didn't have any more left, but fortunately another shop in town had the same color. It was a different dye lot, but I was so close to the end that I didn't think it would matter.

1 comment:

Keowdie said...

That's a gorgeous shawl! I've tried lace knitting twice, with terrible results both times, so I'm pretty impressed with your's.