Whipping the WIPS!

I'm very proud of myself. I finished two WIPs in the last two weeks.

First: Aran Weight Victorian Lace Shawl

I started knitting this in the winter of 2007. It knit up fairly easily and I finished the knitting part of it in early 2008. I don't know if I was sick of it or if I was too intimidated by the idea of blocking it, but I just put it away and haven't thought about it since.

Well, over 4th of July weekend I finally decided to block it. I knew it was going to be too big for my blocking board, so I brought home some load center door boxes from work to extend the area. I commandeered the living room and set to work.

The yarn I used for this project was Peruvian Uros Aran by Elann. 50% Wool. 50% Llama. I was out of Soak, so I washed in in the sink with a little bit of off brand woolite. It reacted fine but the yarn made that part of the house stink like wet Llama.

It took over an hour to block, but it wasn't nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be.

Second: February Lady Sweater

So, according to Ravelry, I'm the 3316th person to finish this sweater. Go me! This version of the FLS is made from Knitpicks Crayon 100% cotton yarn. Special thanks to lynknits for the yarn inspiration on this one. The yarn is incredibly soft and washable.

Because I'm an incredibly loose knitter, I had to go down a needle size from the original to a size 7 even though this yarn is DK weight instead of the recommended worsted weight. The great thing about this pattern is that it can be adapted to almost any weight of yarn. My only frustration is that the pattern instructs you to continue knitting in garter stitch after the increases until the piece almost meets at the underarm. What the heck is ALMOST!?!?!?! I finally decided that ALMOST = 1 inch and it worked out really well. I didn't have any bunching in the underarm (unlike many folks on ravelry).

The buttons I picked out have a great coppery, southwestern look--even though they're plastic. I had two on a card that I bought years ago for a project that has since gone to project heaven--or hell--and, in a stroke of good fortune, I found a matching card at Joann's last Friday. The price had only gone up 54%.

The only thing that remains to be done is to stabilize the collar with a row of reverse single crochet (crab stitch). But since I'm not a hooker, I'll have to leave that to either Lizann or yarndork.