Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 6:16PM A congress of crazies
Penny is staying with us for the week while my parents gallavant through wine country. She and Gracie finally rumbled for the first time today - after four days of complete calm, I was worried that Penny was too distraught to rumble. Today's rumble began with Gracie jumping off our bed and straight into action. It was very Michael Jackson-Bad of her. After the rumble and a good walk, Penny is now sucking on Gracie's bed. She always sucks on dog beds when she's upset. Have you ever met a dog like that before? It's weird, and she's taught Gracie how to do it, too. I feel like I'm living in a circus.
I'm still upset about my vest - too upset to rip it out. But here's something pretty.
This is my tweedy Noro shawl, actually another pattern by Kirsten Kapur (Andrea's Shawl). I dragged this through airports, train stations, funeral homes and various apartments during our cross-country jaunt to meet the fiance(e)s. I cast off in DC and couldn't wait to get home and block it.
I am so in love with this shawl. I only wish it were bigger. I made the largest size, and it drapes across my shoulders nicely, but I can't truly wrap myself in it. I want this thing to be a blanket. With most shawls, you could just keep knitting until it's as big as you want it. Not with this one. You actually start at the edging, determining your shawl's size at the get-go. The nice thing about that is your rows get progressively shorter. The bad thing is that you can't get sick of it and just decide you're done. (Not that I got sick of it. I could have knit this for another three weeks and been perfectly happy.)
I used Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool in a very deep brown and some Noro Kureyon I scored from Jimmi's stash, alternatiing yarns every two rows. Since you edge the entire shawl once you're finished with the body (that's the nice little picots as the top), I was able to carry my yarn up the side and not worry about it showing.
The colors in these picturse are a little off - I just can't find a great spot in the house to photograph large objects. The flash washes out the brown - they're pretty true in the upper right-hand side (and this was after color-correcting!). I have tons of yarn left - I only used 1.5 skeins of the Silky Wool and 1.5 skeins of the Noro. I would love to make a vest with the same stripes, but as yesterday's post shows, maybe I'm not a vest kind of person. But if it was the right vest...
Reader Comments (4)
that is beautiful - pattern and yarn are simply exquisite ...
Beautiful colors and shawl! You can't make it bigger now, but you could make another one the same size and sew them together for a square blanket... I love it!
Beautiful shawl - I really like the colors - I hadn't seen this pattern before - thanks for the link!
My Cairn and Westie both suck on a stuff bunny - so weird!
The shawl is lovely! Regarding the vest - it's so beautiful, are you sure you don't know anyone who it might fit? Then the yarn will stay out of your stash, and you wouldn't have to rip it out. If you don't know anyone personally, you could put a post on the Through the Loops Ravelry group forum for a trade (yarn for a vest maybe? or if you don't need anymore yarn, perhaps somebody will trade you a shawl for it?). Anyway, just an idea :)