Weekend FO

And suddenly, all the YOs, fiddly SSPs and knitted joins were forgotten, as a small choir of seraphim seemed to descend on the sunbeams this afternoon to flutter around the scarf of wonder...

Pattern: Myrtle Leaf Shawl, from Victorian Lace Today
Needle: 3.75mm
Yarn: Malabrigo Laceweight, natural, just over a skein...maybe 1.2 skeins
Mods: I cut the number of pattern repeats by 2 because Jo wanted more of a scarf than a shawl.

I cast this on while I was in the US in the summer. I don't know why I thought a my first attempt at lace in a laceweight yarn would make the ideal project for travelling; it really didn't. It took me until the end of October to finish the body of it, by which point I knew the 12-row repeat well enough that I no longer needed the pattern; then it took about a month to pluck up the courage to start the border, I was convinced I would mess up the whole thing with that; then I lost my nerve again as I approached the corner and it was set aside again.

It would have gone a lot quicker, is what I'm saying, if I had had a little more confidence in my abilities!

The yarn is very delicate; it had started to fuzz a little at the cast on end by the time I finished, so one end wouldn't block out as far as the other, but it doesn't notice. In fact, blocking made it look far better. Blocking is truly a form of alchemy. I followed advice given to me on the Malabrigo Rav board, and soaked it for half an hour in luke warm water with Eucalan. Then I ran the blocking wires through the YOs between the border and scarf body, so that the edge stayed wavy. It was dry within 12 hours.

I would be sorry to give it away, were it not for the fact that (a) I got a gorgeous ladybird ring out of it and (b) I would RUIN it within a week.