This project was addictive!  On Sunday the 12th I started this shawl and it was so much fun to knit that I had it pretty much finished one week later, on the 19th.  I did the final touches to it last night then washed it and ‘severely’ blocked it!  And the best part!!! No headaches with this one, no major screw-ups that I had to fix, nothing to complain about!  Yeah!

Below is a picture of it still on the circular needle.  The yellow threads are ‘life-lines’ just in case.  I kept on pushing the envelope on this one, by knitting more rows then the pattern called for.  Just in case I ran out of yarn I put in life-lines so that I could easily go back to an earlier spot.  I had all sorts of calculations going on to see if I could do more rows:  I was weighing the remaining yarn and estimating how many stitches I could get out of what remained, then translating that into rows.  I had to keep in mind that every knit row added 4 stitches and each ‘pattern’ row was actually the row with the increases and the next row (the so called reverse side of the shawl).  All-in-all it came out well (yarn wise).

On the circular needle

Here it is right off the needles.  I took out the lifelines.  The piece doesn’t look like much and it measures only 25 inches by 18 inches.  In fact a friend of mine saw it off the needles and remarked on how small it looked.  Just wait my friend, just wait!

Right off the needles

I love lace shawls. When you bind them off and take a look at them, they look small and kind of ugly. But…after washing and blocking it:  WOW!  The design really stands out and you end up with a very usable shawl.

Here it is still on the blocking board (sorry about the fuzzy picture).  But like I say, now you can see the pattern.  All stretched out it measured about 55 inches by 25 inches.

Blocking...

This being a shawlette, it’s just meant for protecting the shoulders and/or neck.  It bounced back a bit when I took it off the blocking board, so that it now measures 51 X 21.5 inches.

Front view

Back view on figurine

I love the colors of this yarn, it’s called “Alaska Nights”.  It was a hand spun and hand dyed by Kristein Thrift.  I originally picked it up in ’07 while on a cruise in Alaska.  I am so glad I found the perfect project for this yarn!

The pattern is a freebie on Ravelry, it’s called ‘198 Yards of Heaven’ .