Citron

Finally!  This shawl has been done for over a week – actually about two weeks – but I just procrastinated on blocking it.  But I was home sick today, and decided to finally just do it!  But just a warning – the pictures aren’t wonderful because its raining here (again) and Cieara was not too enthused about modeling this (she wanted to eat her after school snack).

Pattern:  Citron
Yarn:  Madelinetosh Prairie, Thunderstorm colorway
Started:  February 6, 2010
Finished:  March 15, 2010

OK, let’s start with the pattern.  This is really an extremely easy pattern – it’s just basically stockinette with the occasional increase or decrease row.  I did one more repeat than the pattern called for to make it a little bigger – I had enough yarn for yet another repeat but by the time I finished the one extra I was so tired of it – and every row had 800 stitches and that’s just too much sometimes.    I blocked this out by hand – no wires and I just sort of pulled and patted it into shape.   I’m glad I did the extra repeat – it would have been a little small without it but I think the size is perfect now.

I loved using this yarn – Prairie is lace weight – Ravelry says two ply but it’s actually a single ply superwash merino.  It is such a nice yarn – its sort of soft and yet crunchy and I think it had great stitch definition.  I love this colorway – I bought this at Webs in January and as soon as I saw it I had to buy it – its black with a little bit of blue – just gorgeous.    I know its hard to see in my horrible pictures – but it’s there and it just adds something to the shawl.  Definitely recommend the yarn – it’s a great price for the yardage and the colorways are amazing.

I’m pretty happy with the shawl – I don’t know why it took so long to block but I’m glad I finished it finally.  I think this will be a nice shawl to wear when I need a little something for nice occasions (well, nicer than when I’m wearing yoga pants and t-shirts!)

Remember when I told you that Wandering Cat Yarns was having a contest?  I won! 

I was floored – but very happy to pick something from their shop.  It was a hard choice but I finally chose their Fat Cat DK – colorway is Budgie.  This is such nice yarn – very soft and I think it will make very nice socks.  Thanks Valerie and Rhonda!

I have been sick with a cold for two weeks now, and it just kept on getting worse and today I finally gave in and went to the doctor for antibiotics.  Its been terrible – I’ve been really tired and out of it, and haven’t been able to do anything fun.    I hope that the antibiotics work fast  – it looks like this weekend is going to be nice and I’d love to do something outside (play golf, walk dogs, etc).  I haven’t even been knitting much – too much time sleeping and sneezing.  I still haven’t started the sweater but I think I’m going to cast on tonight since I finished the Traveling Woman shawl today (more on that next time!). 

What has also kept me busy recently is that we are starting a lot of house projects – ok, well, we are watching other people do things on our house!  The painter started on our bedroom Monday (the last post on this was last August – and we’ve had these stripes on the wall ever since!).    I am so excited about the room being done – we made a lot of changes to it, and its going to be beautiful.   We are also having a new furnace put in, new patio door, cleaning out rooms, decluttering…the list goes on and on.    Something about spring makes me want to clean up, make changes and do things a little bit more.   It’s exhausting though!

OK, I’m off to try to figure out a provisional cast on with 200 plus stitches – that sounds scary! 

Have a good week – happy Spring!