WIPs: Shawls

I'm going to try to photograph and post my works in progress by category so I can see clearly how much I really have on the needles. Let's start with shawls, because I have the fewest of those on the needles at the moment - three, that is. There were a couple others I recently frogged, but I think these are keepers.

The first is the Forest Canopy Shawl in Butter yarn, a worsted merino-silk blend, by Baywood Yarns (a local Bay Area dyer). I'm partial to heavier weight shawls - they seem more useful and snuggly, and they up finish up so much more quickly, which is good for me these days. At least I am in good company on this preference. I picked this colorway ("Periwinkle") with its clear blues and greens with shades of periwinkle because it reminded me of looking up from a forest path through the treetops at the clear sky beyond on a beautiful sunny day in the early summer, which seemed just perfect for this shawl. I'm pretty new to lace, plus I get distracted often, so I ran a safety line, even though the pattern is so simple it hardly needs it. (The pattern may not, but there's a decent chance I will.)



Next is the inevitable Clapotis by Kate Gilbert. I'm using Schaefer Yarn's Helene, a silk wool blend very similar to the pattern's Lion & Lamb, in the "Gertrude Ederle" colorway. I'm doing extra repeats to make the full-sized shawl. I have reached the part where you drop stitches, but that part doesn't show in this photo, which shows first section "pre-dropping."

And finally, the Feathery Lace Shawl by Iris Schreier found in Exquisite Little Knits. I'm doing it with Kidsilk Aura (instead of Kidsilk Haze) on larger needles in shade 758 (a steely blue-grey) to make a larger shawl.

I think I'm going to choose one of these projects to focus on for a while. Although it almost feels like spring here this week, I'm leaning towards going back to Clapotis, which I haven't touched for a while, because I think I will lose inspiration for its wintry colors and weight once true spring hits, and I should be able to work on the others further into the spring/summer. I'm sure they will take that long because I have lots of other great projects on the needles that I can't keep away from. Socks in progress, lots of them, coming next.