I met a friend recently for a walk and a coffee in my local park. I brought my latest knitting project along, Sweet Dreams by Boo Knits, to get some photos of it. I often forget that there is a beautiful walled garden behind the coffee shop in the park because dogs are not allowed, but today we ventured in (having left Ollie and Mia briefly in the car).
It’s a small walled garden but really beautiful. And what photographer can resist a bike leaning up against a wall? We also met this guy in the courtyard, he kept shaking his feathers at us in a suggestive way so I took a few quick snaps and then moved cautiously away.
The shawl itself is knit in Louisa Harding Orielle in Ice and I used 4 skeins. I ran out of yarn about two rows into the final chart so hightailed it into This Is Knit where the staff helped me pick out Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply in Slate to finish the last few rows. Orielle is technically a DK weight and the Fyberspates a 4ply, but both are closer to a Sport weight so they worked beautifully together. The Orielle has a sparkle woven into the yarn and the sheen from the silk in the Fyberspates give it a very elegant air.
I wanted to wear this shawl to a wedding of a knitter friend of mine and managed to finished it at 11am the morning of the wedding. The picot bind off took around 5 hours to complete. If I never see another picot again it will be too soon. But the effect is beautiful. I gave the shawl a quick block and dried it as best I could with a hairdryer before the wedding but it needed a proper block when I got home.
This fabulous model was tucked in behind a tree in the walled garden and willingly obliged as I took a few photos. The grey in the shawl will go with so many of my ‘good’ dresses and the alpaca in the Orielle is very warm so I think I’ll get a lot of wear out of this shawl. The crescent shape sits very comfortably on my shoulders so I’m really happy with the final product.
Crafty Tails 