Leaf Pattern Lace Shawl

Hi there! Sorry it's been a while since my last post. But things have been busy, life moves at a fast pace, time flies when you're having fun, etc, etc, you know the routine...grin. What I've been doing with myself, knit-wise anyway, is working on a shawl for the last two months and it is now finished!

The pattern is the "Triangular Scarf in Leaf Pattern" by Nancy Bush from her book "Knitted Lace Of Estonia." It seems to be way too large and triangular to be considered a scarf to me but what do I know? In any case I made this for my Mom for Mother's Day and can't wait to deliver it to her. We are heading down to visit Mom and Dad in just over a week, so it will be a little late, but I'd much rather be able to give it to her in person than mail it down.

This is the first lace project I've worked on. I must say that it made me a little nervous at first. All those yarn overs, increases and decreases...how do you keep track of them all? But I found that with a little patience and practice I got pretty good at it and my comfort level increased. One thing that I would recommend is using a lifeline. It isn't mentioned in Nancy's book (unless I missed it...), but putting in a lifeline every six or eight rows was a life saver on a couple occassions.

As I was knitting along it was hard to imagine what the final project would look like. Granted, I had the pictures in the book, but my blob of bunched up yarn looked nothing like that. So I kept on knitting, keeping the faith that mine might end up looking like the beautiful piece of lace pictured alongside the pattern.

And lo and behold, it did! The blocking process was actually pretty cool and made much easier using the blocking wires I got from Knit Picks. I imagine it would have been much more time consuming and a harder task overall to have to pin out each individual point. But using the blocking wires, t-pins and some foam interlocking flooring squares that I got at a local discount store, I had it done in no time. And what a transformation! Actually I enjoyed making this shawl so much that I've already started on my next one. I'll post an update soon to show you how it looks so far. Til then...