Off the Needles

As with every large project, no matter how quickly and easily the bulk of the knitting goes, the last inch or so is a always killer. I had 6 rows and the Bind Off left, and it took me all last evening to do it. But the Horseshoe Triangle Shawl KAL is off the needles!

In its present form (unwashed, unstretched, unblocked), the shawl is 52" wide, and 29" long. It took 7.2 ozs of yarn, on size 8 needles. I finished with 21 lace repeats, and a total of 233 sts.

Speaking of this yarn, which I bought a couple of years ago at NCFF- it's a heavy fingering weight (I suspect it'll bloom to sport weight) and I don't think I've mentioned that it has a fairly strong oil/grease scent that I hope will wash out (it's soaking in hot water right now). The handwritten label says that it's merino/nylon and that the cone weighed 18.8 ozs. However, the shawl used 7.2 ozs, and the remainder clocks in at 5.5 ozs with the cone-so it wasn't anywhere near 18 ozs! Since the cone weighs at least a couple of ozs, minimum, it was probably only had 10 ozs of yarn to begin with. The yarn was commercially spun in a small mill, which probably should recalibrate their scales (or the label was mistakenly applied, which sounds better to me- I doubt that this yarn has any Merino in it- it's definitely not soft). Still, there was enough yardage to complete the shawl, and probably enough for matching socks, if I'm ever in the mood to knit some.

I'm looking forward to blocking it- well not to the actual blocking, which is tedious. But I'm looking forward to seeing the shawl all pinned and shaped. I think it's going to be gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, here's last night's sunset.