Adventures in Lace (With an Accidental Demon Possession)

 For quite some time, I've wanted to make myself a black shawl. I have lots of shawls in many different colors: blue, purple, orange, tan, grey, and green. But none of those shawls can be worn with everything in my wardrobe. I wanted to make something more versatile - and lighter weight, so I could wear it in this ridiculous weather that we are calling "summer" instead of "hell on Earth," for some reason.

That meant making lace. I love it more every time I make it.

I made the pattern Summer Flies by Donna Griffin (click pictures for more detail). It's done on size 8 needles and works up really fast - I started this pattern at the beginning of the month, and I had plenty of time to work on some other projects in between, too.

This is the first curving shawl I've made, too - all the others are rectangles or triangles. By the end, there were 400 stitches per row, but that was the only somewhat boring part of this pattern. Throw on some Planet Earth while working on it, and the time passes quickly.

I made mine with yarn from The Sow's Ear - Cascade Yarns Alpaca Lace (they might be my new favorite yarn brand). It was wonderful to work with, and perfect for this shawl.

The only thing I needed a tutorial on for this pattern was the bind-off. I've never done a picot edge before, or a cable cast-on, and Knitty was very helpful for that.

Then I realized why I've never done that before.

The blocking.

I rather dislike blocking. Unlike many knitters (or so I gather), I hate weaving in ends more than blocking, but when the blocking is this detailed, it kind of makes me want to go a-slaughtering. With so many pointy things at my disposal, I would be a formidable opponent indeed.

As I apparently was in this picture.

I had Spousal Unit take this so I could prove to you all that The Neverending Quilt is finally big enough for two people to use, and getting closer to completion by the day. Unfortunately, if you view the larger version of the photo, it's clear I've just come from a demon hunt and was accidentally possessed by a quilt demon.

Just a little freaky.