Keep them coming!

I have two more shawls to report. One was a test knit for my favourite NZ designer which has now gone live and the other was one I was asked to test by my favourite NH designer, but was busy with the NZ one at the time. So I joined the KAL, but life intervened and I didn’t finish it on time. Too many words. More pictures!

Here’s Mary-Anne Mace’s Lotus Pond in Neith, an exquisite alpaca-silk lace blend by Raventwist, a Canadian west coast yarn company. I bought this skein at last year’s Knitters Frolic for the colour, and have called my version of Mary-Anne’s beautiful shawl Dragon Scales.

I took this shawl with me to Panama when we vacationed there at the beginning of February. It was a perfect accessory in the evening over skimpy summer dresses.

The second shawl is Heather Anderson’s Quantum Leap. Like her Turtle Beach which I tested last fall, this one starts as three cast on stitches and then increases at one edge while decreasing half as quickly at the other. It makes for a lovely curved triangle shape which drapes beautifully. I knit the garter section with Julie Asselin’s Leizu Fingering, a merino-silk blend, then switched to KnitPicks’ Gloss fingering for the patterned section. The two colours really went nicely together and my husband liked it so much, he asked me to give it to him for a scarf. So I did. Here it is all laid out, and on its happy recipient.

I brought that one to Panama, too, but as an unfinished project. It was very difficult to knit as it was so very hot there. I couldn’t stand having the wool touch my skin. Luckily, I also had a sock project with me which was easier to manage.