Eiki Shawl

Since I last posted, one of my friends had a baby, and I got sick! Suck! I also managed to sucker a couple of people into driving me places go to Ikea and SuperWalmart, which were both fun excursions. 

Today I stayed home from work as I lost my voice almost totally from all the coughing I got up to over the weekend. By now it's mostly back, but I can only imagine what a day of answering phones would have done to it. I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove of things tomorrow. 

I napped part of the morning away, then managed to stay awake in the afternoon and since I had some free time I decided to photograph my latest FO, which is the Eiki Shawl by Janel Laidman. I finished it last Friday and blocked it on Saturday.

Turned out MEGA nice. 

It's one of the largest shawl(ette)s I've knit, and has rocketed straight to the top in terms of favorite. The yarn, Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Landlubber Grasshopper was purchased directly from the company at Stitches West. I don't think I've ever purchased yarn and finished a project so soon with it before! The pattern calls for 440 yards of yarn; I not only chose a yarn with 412 yards, but I used a bigger needle than called for as well. Let's just say it was a bit of a nail biter towards the end as the yarn ball kept getting smaller and smaller – and I have no other yarn this particular shade of red in the stash, so I wasn't sure what I would do if I ran out early. Luckily, while I worried about it extensively it turned out I didn't have to, though there is very little yarn left. 

OKAY so I just weighed the shawl and the leftover yarn and the yarn weighed 4.25 oz, so if my calculations are correct, that actually means that I had 437 yards, in which case, I was fine. Hmpf.

Here's some detail shots:

The colors are actually pretty accurate on my monitor – you can see the flecks of purple and gold in with the deep red.

This was truly one of my favorite knitting experiences – all that garter stitch plus leafy lace? It's basically my favorite things! Plus my new favorite yarn so it was doubly nice.