mini-parade: day 1

to keep things short and sweet, set apart so you'll know when i have (finally) finished reliving the past and moved onto the present, and yet still keep a sense of fun, i've decided to host a parade. a mini-parade, because when parades are too long everyone gets antsy, so this will be more like just a few floats going by (because i don't have the bands to march in between for relief). i don't think it'll go much longer than a week, assuming i post everyday. so not quite a december advent calender. although, (if only you speak swedish) there is a chocolate advent calender over at pickipicki, where you click through a photo to a quick chocolate recipe every day. how cool is that?

without further ado, leading off our parade is a knit shawl that survived mistakes, ripbacks, and running out of yarn at least twice to make its way to my mother's shoulders in may.

the length was exactly where i wanted it, and it took 3 skeins to get there (which the pattern utterly neglected to even hint at). the babyull impressed me so, (soft yet warm and light) that i still daydream of babyull sweaters for myself. it stood up well to ripping back, and there was no visible difference in the 3 dyelots used throughout the shawl. it blocked wonderfully from a lumpto beautiful lace. blocking was easier than i anticipated, all i really had to do was smooth out the shawl and pin out the points (which didn't take nearly as long as i expected). feather and fan is one of my favorite lace patterns. i couldn't resist a closeup of the lace itself. and the faroese shaping is something marvelous to behold. i test wore the shawl and it really does stay in place all by itself. so very very cool. i may have to make myself one.