FO: Evenstar Shawl (at last!)

Pattern: The Evenstar Shawl
Yarn: Alpaca with a Twist Fino, Duchess Blue. About 2.5 hanks (1312 yards).
Needles: Size 4 Addi Turbo Lace
Cast on: January 4, 2012
Bound off: April 23, 2012



I've been in love with this pattern since I first saw it. It's been high on my to do list, but I haven't committed to a large lace piece for a while. And I wanted to change that this year. I have a whole list in my Rav queue tagged 2012 of goal projects for the year.



I cast on just after the new year. I was hoping to knit this in about two months, but I've been really overworked at my job, and between work and training for my half marathons, I just wasn't putting in the time on this that I had hoped. So it took closer to five months to finish.



The pattern is very nice. Clearly written and easy to follow. I only made one small modification which is, on the edging, on the WS, to slip the first stitch (the k2tog with the body on the RS) instead of knit it. Felt more secure to me. The finished, blocked shawl, is somewhere around 5 feet in diameter. Blocking it was actually sort of fun since there weren't 300 little peaks to pin out, just 56 (I think).



This yarn, Alpaca with a Twist Fino, is right up there among my favorite yarns to knit with. It's gorgeous. Soft and supple, but not too delicate. Give me a yarn with some silk blended in and I'm generally a pretty happy knitter.



Overall, I recommend this for the knitter looking for a larger project and a little bit of a challenge. Nothing in here that a dedicated beginner couldn't tackle, but you need to be comfortable trying new things and devoting a good chunk of time to this. (The edging alone probably took me over 24 hours to finish...)