Totally addicted to shawls

I haven't really been that into shawls until now. Not sure why all of a sudden I am. Well, I should say I like the way they look and some of them are incredibly beautiful patterns, but I could never see myself using one, so never thought I'd actually knit one. Maybe it's the way that everyone seems to be wearing them as scarves that swayed me? Not sure, but I do think they look a lot prettier as a scarf than most scarves do!

So I jumped on the bandwagon too. But as Sam says, popular patterns are popular for a reason. This is Ishbel (Rav link), and I'm in love! This is actually my second Ysolda knit. The other one needs buttons and blocking, so no pics of that one as yet, but soon. I am in love with this shawl. the finished object is so pretty, and it will work well as a scarf I think. I knit the large stocking stitch and small lace, so it's not a huge shawl. But that's a good thing since I really have nowhere to block something really large. This was my first time blocking lace too. I'm not entirely happy with the end result, so I'm going to do it again. I think I can probably get it a little bigger with another blocking. I used DIC Smooshy for this and it's lovely and soft.


Anyway, since casting this off I've been scouring Ravelry for another pretty shawl pattern. I'm really itching to get one on the needles! This is despite all the issues I had with Ishbel. Not that it was a particularly hard pattern, but me and double-decreases don't seem to mix well. I will say this required quite a bit of concentration, and lifelines. Thank goodness for lifelines. But I think this one is a good prep for more lace in the future. Not too hard, not too easy. The photo is of it blocking. I'll get a better pic and put it up soon.

I love it.