FO: Juneberry Shawl

Well now. It's been quite the eventful past couple months. City life means you very infrequently get a little time to yourself, and when you do, I find myself just thrilled to be able to sit down and have a couple minutes of quiet time to myself.

So we had a weird spring where it was either cold or raining, and just when I started to get into the asparagus that was crowding the markets, it becomes unbearably hot and humid. I really had to convince myself that turning the oven on is a great, fabulous idea and I've paid good money all winter for the privilege to sit in a sauna and a steam room, so now I get it for free.



Asparagus did eventually get cooked and eaten. It was a trial though.

In my attempt to keep my stash in check, I dug up 4 skeins of Shelter. The color is "Almanac".



I cast on for the Juneberry Shawl a couple months ago. I fell in love with the textured lace. LOVE LOVE LOVE.



The knitting of the actual body of the shawl hummed around at a nice pace. I honestly thought this would be done in two weeks. The pattern was so well-written and charted, I zipped through it with no problems at all.

Then I came to the knitted edging. It was much bigger shawl than I anticipated, and I spent a couple of weeks plugging away at the edging. It wasn't hard at all, but the pattern was complicated enough to require my full attention.

I got to the halfway point and to my dismay, I realized I was pretty much out of yarn. Not doing a gauge swatch will cause that to happen. In the end, I was about 25 yards short. Sad face.

I was about to buy a new skein when Ravelry came to my rescue. I found another knitter who had leftovers of the same color, and they were willing to send it along to me. Brilliant! I groveled quite a bit and thanked them profusely, and I promise to do the same with any leftover yarn I have from future projects.

It only took me another hour to finish it up. I blocked it on my bed, where it took up the entire bed and I had to hinge it over the edge of the mattress to get the lace to open up.

And....



VOILA!



It's enormous! I love the textured lace and how it transitions from one theme to another.





I really should have gone down a needle size and ended up with a smaller shawl (and no issue of running out of yarn).



It's so dramatic and lovely.



I feel that this shawl has ceased to be an accessory. It's the main event.



Props to Jared Flood for another impeccable pattern.



The specs:

The Juneberry Triangle by Jared Flood. I used 4.5 skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn and US size 9 needles. The bouncy targhee-columbia yarn blend made for great lace stitch definition.