Swallowtail Shawl - a picture diary

I spent my morning with Karen, Gena, and (blogless?) Melinda. We went to an apple festival at Bethabara park. It was tons of fun - complete with colonial costumes and a horse-drawn wagon. There were demonstrations on spinning, weaving, bobbin lace, and a smithy who let kids pump the bellows. I brought the recently completed swallowtail shawl with me for some photographs.

On seeing Minty's finished swallowtail, I decided to perform 5 extra repeats of the budding lace chart. I was using laceweight and I'd heard other knitters complain that it was a rather small shawl so I really wanted to increase the size. The finished wingspan is 64 inches, and it is 31 inches from the center top to the tip. I'm very pleased with the size.

The thing that appealed to me most about this shawl was the nupps in the Lily of the Valley border. Fortunately, I am such a loose knitter that the p5tog stitches didn't even phase me. I know most people slip 2, purl 3 tog, then pass the 2 slipped stitches over. Honestly I found this far more fiddly than just purling the stitches all at once.

I love the drape of the Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk (purchased from Sarah's Yarns - this shawl only cost $6.00). It was so shocking when I bound off the last stitch and picked up the shawl to flop it out and admire my (sad and puckered) work. It weighed nothing! The weight of the needles had me thinking I had created this substantial thing, but it really does weigh less than 50 grams (less than 1.7 ounces for all you non-scientists out there).

May I just say - this is my favorite project yet. It was my first lace, but I found it really intuitive. I am already thinking about what my next lace project will be. I'm a huge fan of Evelyn A. Clark's patterns, so I'm preferentially eyeing hers. Until then, I will be working on Eunny Jang's Tangled Yolk Cardigan from the latest issue of Interweave knits. I'd show you a progress shot, but 2 inches of ribbing isn't exactly exciting.

Happy Saturday!