Another week, another lace shawl off the needles.  Don’t expect this to be a regular thing around here – I have no others waiting in the wings.

Pattern Lilac Wish Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov

Yarn Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in the Peppermint colorway.  I believe this color is discontinued.

KAL Use It or Lose It 06 – I can’t believe I’ve finished 6 projects so far this year out of stash yarn!

Needles US#4 (3.5mm) Addi Turbos Lace

Mods Just one – I replaced the nupps with beads. No explanation necessary.

I loved – LOVED – knitting this shawl.  Most of the knitting was done over 2 weekends.  The bind off took another 5 days – fitting in a bit of binding off each night after work.  It was worth it though – JSSBO made the edge stretchy but still tidy.

The pattern was perfect – I used the charted instructions – and followed them except for those pesky little nupps.

I think my yarn choice was decent but not great.  The 100% alpaca just isn’t as crisp as a merino or silk, and I don’t see the edges of the leaves as much as I do in some other FOs.  I love the color though and it’s light as a feather.  I think this will be a nice topper during the summer months.

One other thing to mention – I hadn’t used these Addi Turbos in quite a while and the cable was super-kinked.  I got rid of the kink by pouring some boiling water on them and letting them sit for 20 or 30 seconds.  Then I took the needles out and pulled the cable in between my fingers to smooth them.  Easy peasy.

As I mentioned last week, I’m enamored with knitting crescent shawls, but for now I’m taking a short break to work on a few WIPs.  Because, yes, I have quite a few.

I’ll catch you on the purl side.

This shawl took over my knitting life – I finished it in just 2 weeks.

Mrs. Tumnus Shawl in Schaefer Anne

4.0 mm ChiaoGoo needles for the body, cast on with a 5.0 mm.

All those twisted stitches and ptbls begged for a sharp needle.  I started out with an Addi Turbo but switched to ChiaoGoos and things zoomed along.

I have lots of detailed notes on my project page on Ravelry.  My biggest piece of advice is to take a deep breath and just get through the CO row and the next couple.  The pattern gets set up and it becomes easier to knit.  Remember – 2 weeks?

The blocking instructions are awesome and made it so easy to get that horseshoe shape.  I’ve never blocked using a running stitch to create the shape but it really worked.  The blocking pic is up above.

I do have one (largish) regret though – my yarn choice.  The colors are much more variegated than I realized and it detracts from the lace.  I rarely knit the same project twice but if I were to I would make sure to use a solid or nearly solid.  Oh well – live and learn.

The other thing I learned with this project has to do with my new mannequin – Mimi.  Isn’t she pretty?  I used her for the first time and it’s hard to see the shawl detail – the wire outlines show through.  I may wrap her like a sari or stuff her with something black for pics in the future.  And yes – her neck is crocked.  I didn’t notice that in the pics on eBay.  Oh well – live and learn.

One final – good thing – that I learned.  I LOVE knitting and wearing crescent-shaped shawls.  So much so that I’ve already started my next – out of some more stash yarn.  Cast on Mania might need to go for the whole month.

I’ll catch you on the purl side.

shockingly I see a lot of pink, red, purple and green

Have you seen talk about Use It or Lose It on the Stash and Burn board?  13 projects in 12 months – a new one every four weeks.  With that in mind, most (all?) need to be fairly small.  And given I haven’t finished a garment in over two years that’d be prudent.  Necessary even.

Let’s not mention that I didn’t even finish 13 projects in 2012.  Logic be damned.

I know myself well enough to avoid pre-selecting all 13 projects.  I only finished 6 projects in 2012.  If I’m going to have any chance of getting 13 done (plus a few in newer yarn) I need to go with my emotions – and pick projects I’m obsessed with at the time.

But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have umpteen projects in mind that might be THE one.  And if I didn’t include a few garments (the last two on the list).

1. Looped Loop cowl – in Tess Supersock in blues and greens or Noro Silk Garden Light in Blue and Lime Green.
2. Ellis Baby Dress in Louet Gems Opal in Pink Panther
3. Japanese Butterfly Neckwarmer – in Just Our Yarn Caravan – the wool and camel would be great next to the skin.
4. Dandelion Days is another cowl I’d love to knit and wear.  And it’s also out of sock yarn.
5. Beauchamp cowl also out of 2 skeins of Koigu.  This would be a great project to practice my stranded knitting.
6. More squares for my sock yarn blanket.  I bought 7 skeins of handdyed to start and I’ve only knitted one so far.  Here’s the rest.  I know that won’t be enough for a full blanket but I didn’t want to buy all the yarn until I made some progress.
7. Something out of my Black Bunny Fibers sock flats.  I have two – blue/green/yellow/orange and a pink/red/yellow/chartreuse
8. (not my) handspun, navajo-plied self-striping yarn.  I was obsessed with this yarn when I bought it but lost all excitement for it.  I know I’ll love wearing the socks.  Here’s a pair of socks knitted up in the same colorway – these were the socks that made me buy the yarn.
9. Firefly bag in Burgundy Tahki Cotton Classic.
10. Socks.  So many socks to choose from.  I have almost 100 faved sock patterns in Ravelry, and every day new patterns come out that I want to try.  And we all know that I have a lot of sock yarn.
11. A pair of mittens out of blue/green Cascade 220.  I have so many to choose from.
12. A scarf out of doubled laceweight in a textured, rippled all-over cable pattern.  I started one a few years back but the color is awful for me.  I bought 7 skeins of Tess laceweight in 2007 and have started so many projects with the yarn, but nothing’s stuck.
13. Cece cardi in dark red Hempathy
14. Cerisara in eggplant Euroflax Linen