JustintimeforWinter Bandit

The magic of blocking lace never gets old.  Unlike my back, which feels it after a sustained period of bending over pinning lace onto a blocking mat.  Even when that blocking mat is up reasonably high, on my kitchen bench.  Heaven forbid if I ever have to block something huge on the floor!!

So this is the result of my most recent pain in the back!

Details
Pattern: Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborne.  A very nice, easy lace shawl (and also free!).  Originally done in worsted weight yarn, but as I used fingering/4ply, I did extra repeats - it is very easy to add extra repeats, no need to do any recalculations for the edging or anything, just add the repeats until you are done, and start the edging.  A very good feature of shawl patterns I think, is the ease of adding extra repeats.  In this case, the pattern calls for 4 repeats of the body charts, while I did 7.  And ended up with a shawl about the size of the original, heh!

Blobby pre-blocking lace

Yarn:  Wollmeise 100% Merino, in Admiral.  Yes, another Week of Wollmeise project done!  (hmm, that makes 2 out of 7 complete.  Not really that much cause to celebrate, heh!).  I tried to use as much of the skein as possible, but found I had 32g left after binding off.  But not to worry, I don't think I could have gotten an extra repeat out of that much anyway.  Maybe it'll be enough for a wee pair of socks...

This is a gorgeous navy/black colour, it works so well for lace because it is so dark, but you still get a gorgeous depth of colour.  It's just hard to photograph well!

Sticks:  4mm KnitPicks Options.  I'm glad I chocse the nickel sticks for this yarn, it made it much easier to knit at night!

Time:  1 September 2009 (heh!) - 9 June 2011.  Despite this, it's actually a lovely quick knit!

Modifications:  Only the extra repeats, noted above. 

Inspired by Al, I took some lovely "Victorian Lace Today" style photos at the WWKIP on Saturday.  Love how the sun shines through the lace.  Nothing like it to make you feel like a clever knitter! 

And that's another long-term wip I can cross off the list! I started the year with 17 WIPS, and of those, I have 12 left - so that's nearly 1 per month done.  Let's hope I can keep it up for the rest of the year!