FO: Swallowtail Shawl

I DID IT! I fought the shawl and I WON!



I had a strict deadline as this was for one of my good friend who is getting married today! How exciting is that!

Being that purple is her very favorite color in the whole wide world I wasn't very surprised that she asked for the shawl to be made in purple as well...

I wanted to make sure that it matched her purple wedding dress perfectly so I dyed the yarn my self... you probably remember me talking about it here

Picking the pattern was easy too as I quickly realized that my friend loved any shawl pattern I showed her as long as it was purple. So I chose the Swallowtail for a few reasons
1. Let's be realistic it's a free pattern! I LOVE THAT!
2. Loads of people have knit this so I knew I could get plenty of help if I got stuck (cough*nupps*cough)
3. I love the budding lace pattern... simple and elegant.





Then I got to knitting... This being my first shawl it took a lot of patience and a lot of reworking but it was well worth it as it came out better than I hoped and the smile on my friend's face yesterday when I handed it over made all the work worth it.

I was pleasently surprised with how beautiful it looked even before I blocked it


But I couldn't pass up using my new lace blocking kit from KnitPicks!

So here are the details of my shawl
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Natural color that I then dyed in a lilac purple. This took slightly less that one skein... I swear this mally lace reproduces almost as fast as you can knit it!
Needles: Size US 4's
Mod: This shawl wasn't going to be big enough so I decided to do 19 budding lace repeats instead of 14 but I must say this wond not have gone very smoothly for me if it hadn't been for this blog post by Petterknit. Oh and those nupps? Not nearly as hard as everyone made it sound... just fiddly which was a huge relief cause they were quite intimidating to attempt but came out wonderfully

Honestly knitting this was a pleasure and has made lace knitting one of my new favorite types of project... good thing too as I have loads of lace yarn!

After the wedding is over I'm going to try to get some more proper pictures of the FO... I just didn't have time to take pictures of the Swallowtail in good light.

Now I'm revisiting the FLS! Can you believe it?!?!?! I'm almost done with the body! Woot woot!