feather and fan shawl

I suppose I should hurry up and post some sewing and knitting stuff before this becomes the all-baby blog, eh?

Last week Hubs attended a computer training thingy in Las Vegas, so Daughter and I camped out at my parents' house. Yes, I am capable of staying alone in my home, but we figured that in my delicate condition I should be around people that could help if anything went wrong. Plus, an entire week of solo parenting might have gotten a little stressful.

I didn't really have any chores to do (my mom doesn't even require me to make my bed anymore...how sweet is that?) so I had ample time for some crafty endeavors.

First up I desperately wanted to finish the shawl I started over a year ago. My goal was to finish it before baby arrives, though I was really shooting for the end of June so I could move on to other things.


Crappy picture, I know, but it was really hard to take a photo of a blue shawl on a pink sheet inside the house on a cloudy day. I had to use the flash and try to adjust the color - this is the best I could do.

Anyway, whatever, it's DONE! Tens of thousands of stitches! And it is finished!

Details:
Feather and Fan shawl by Eugen Beugler, from A Gathering of Lace
Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud laceweight yarn in Stream Heather - 4 complete hanks
US size 5 needles (16 inch and 24 inch)
Jump rings (for making jewelry) as stitch markers
Eleventy thousand million T-pins for blocking
Mom to help with blocking out each crochet loop around the edge

The finished measurement of the shawl is listed as 68" across in the book, but mine is nowhere near that size. I knit fairly tightly, so I used less yarn than called for and when we were blocking it we were terrified it would rip if we stretched it to that measurement (I read about that happening to someone with this very shawl on Ravelry). It just wasn't working and the pins were popping out all over the place. So we eased it back to more like 60 to 62 inches across, which is still quite large and useful, but didn't stress the yarn so much.

I still have one full hank of the yarn left over, wound into a center-pull ball, if anyone could use it. Just leave a comment.

I'm rather proud of this project. It wasn't difficult, per se, but definitely tedious and time consuming! It came out just about perfect, except for one gaping giant error that you can't really see in this photo. I must have made a mistake waaaaaaayyyy back when I started and didn't know how to fix it or something, because I left it and now there's a hole. I guess if I wear it I will just have to fold it over to hide the hole (it is about a dime-size hole). For now it goes into the cedar chest and I will move on to finishing something else...