Zee shawl, she eez done!

I am a convert. A complete and utter convert. Everything involved with the creation of a lace shawl seems like a minor miracle to me. First off, the fact that a clumsy dork like me can knit one. Second is the fact that the entire thing, made up of thousands and thousands of tiny knits, purls, yarnovers, decreases and increases, all originates from three measly cast-on stitches. THREE! To three-hundred something by the time I reached the cast-off row, and god knows how many stitches in between! Unbelieveable. It's like a mathematical miracle in fabric form. And I don't even LIKE math!

And then, the final miracle is that something that starts out looking like this...



...crumply, bumply, messy and fussy, can turn into THIS:



It's light as a feather, crisp and strong, the colors are simply amazing. It is funky and cool, wearing it with a sexy tank top will completely blow any "old lady shawl" image out of the water. I could wear it naked. In fact, I just might, for more private moments--it is just that hot. A SHAWL! Who knew a frickin' shawl could be sexy??

Despite the fact that I used a laceweight yarn and went down a couple of needle sizes, this is still a large shawl, at least for someone of my height. I neglected to measure it while it was pinned out, but it has a length across the top of at least 60 inches (the length of my "wingspan") which makes for a perfectly-sized shawl for a shorty like me.

Of course, the pattern would be more apparent had I used the thicker yarn called for in the pattern, or even a solid colored yarn...photographing the blocked shawl is a bit difficult, but in person I think the pattern is subtle but still apparent.



I'm glad that my next shawl is going to be in a solid color, though--I've started work on the Peacock Feathers shawl, and oh man...I have to admit, the Zephyr is SENT FROM GOD. It's softer than the Helen's Lace and feels a little more substantial, knitting it up is like a dream. Plus the color I've chosen, Ruby, makes me drool. I'd post pictures of the (as of right now) teensy WIP, but I've hit my upload limit for the month on Flickr. It must have been all the kitten pictures! So to close, here is Jonesy in the new Kitty Pi (which the boys seem to prefer as a Kitty Pancake!)