Finished Fairy Shawl

Without work one finishes nothing. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's Labour Day, and I believe that this is the first Labour Day when I am pleased to show you the fruit of my labours - a finished thing!

I wove in all the ends this afternoon and wet-blocked it in the sunshine out in the yard. I pulled it off the boards and hung it against the mound of ivy to get a full-length shot of it:

This piece was based on the free pattern called Poussière de Fée by Louise Robert, which means "fairy dust," which is possibly why this thing looks so good hanging in the garden. I followed the pattern in an intensely inaccurate way throughout. This means I mostly did what I was told except when I decided I wouldn't (which is pretty much the way I lived the first 35 years of my life, by the way).

I surrendered early to using stockinette stitch as the main stitch because I was having too much trouble figuring out how the stitch count worked without having distinct right and wrong sides. After that, the project became a sort of stitch sampler, which was endlessly fascinating as I watched how each stitch transformed both skeins of yarn. This is the starting stockinette stitch:

And here are a couple of sections of linen stitch:

And then I tried out plaited basketweave for a while:

And here is the lovely two-colour brioche stitch, which is definitely one I will be revisiting:

And lastly, this ribbing stitch, which I can't remember the name of anymore. I worked this section four times because I was playing yarn chicken and so desperately wanted to end with the pink yarn that I was willing to rip out a few hours of work to make sure I did:

My stitch counts were completely incorrect at the end because I didn't do all of the increases to save yarn and yet somehow managed to have too many stitches on the left side. The resulting shape is someone lopsided on the wider end because I had to do double the decreases to make it work. And yet, I think it looks pretty good. I've never a shawl this shape. Do I know how to wear it? No, not at all. I did try it out a bit today, but it's just a bit too warm for experimentation.  I do know that when the cold weather comes and I need a bit of warmth, necessity will definitely inspire invention. Besides, it's hard to tell from the photos, but this thing is about five feet long. It's gonna be warm no matter how I wear it.

We're enjoying the last few summery days here. Seymour spent part of his afternoon charming people at the park. We're getting ready to go away on holiday soon, so I have to go think about planning my travel project packing my suitcase. Have a great week!