sophy's knits, notes, etc.

after knitting the flower basket shawl, i decided to go through my queue of shawls and pick another that would look lovely in frosty pink malabrigo lace. my choice, another Evelyn A. Clark design that i've been longing to knit: the swallowtail shawl. [ravelry]

hastily cast over the mirror for a quick snapshot on a sunny day...

Pattern Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark.
Source Interweave Knits, Fall 2006
Yarn Malabrigo Yarn Lace, Color #17 Pink Frost, 1 Skein.
Needles US 4 (3.5 mm).
FInished size eep. need to measure.

the pattern

this pattern is very similar to the flower basket shawl and both are easy to follow. as such, you should not be surprised if you see me knit a few more of her shawls this year.

it's obvious i don't quite know what to do with the lacewood shawl pin.

there is one big difference between the two patterns, though; while you can mindlessly resize the flower basket shawl by repeating one of the charts as many times as you want, the swallowtail shawl is not as modular. well. that's not entirely true—you just have to make some calculations. it's kind of silly to go on about this when the patterns are probably not in front of my readers; but when i finished the shawl, i found myself with 20 grams of lace yarn leftover... that's just under half the skein right? grr. i could totally have repeated the budding lace chart 5 more times... but, since i thought i would only have about 30 yards leftover, i didn't think that was enough to knit the 19 repeats of the budding lace chart— thus, i kept it to the 14 repeats instructed in the pattern; and now, i have a shawlette...

...a very *pretty* shawlette!

oh and of course, i can't possibly talk about this shawl(ette) without bringing up the wonders of knitting nupps. i know i kind of complained about them a bit; but, i really have to say that i love how they look. they definitely make the lily of the valley pattern.

the yarn

i have so much love for this yarn. but, does that come as any surprise when it's Malabrigo Yarn? this skein was an impulsive buy from Imagiknit last year; after rubbing it against my cheeks, i couldn't put it back on the shelf. nevermind that, just that morning, i had told myself, "no more pink yarns!"

wet hair!

the yarn has beautifully subtle color variations; really, it's not the same shade of pink all over. when i pinned it out after blocking, i noticed striations of very pale pink (almost white) and darker pinks, almost mauve... ah. it's exactly as you would expect from Malabrigo solids, though isn't it? *love*

as i mentioned earlier, i have almost half a skein left after finishing this shawl. i'm considering a giveaway—more details to follow...

happy knitting!