Work on WIP Week: Print O' The Wave

Stretched out Print O' the Wave

While I think about / work out what to do on my Sockapalooza heel, I've decided that this would be a good week to work on some projects that haven't gotten a lot of face time. Lord knows I have enough of them (don't we all?). First on deck: the Print O' the Wave Shawl.

I started the shawl last September, after seeing lovely versions in progress here and (of course) there. I last blogged about the Print O' The Wave shawl about five months ago, and I should note that that was just a mention that I should work on it again--it's been a few months longer since I picked it up. I've been carrying it with me when travelling, but didn't crack into it until I was dogsitting in May. I switched from Addi Turbos to Addi Lace needles, and it's made the pattern a lot more manageable. Plus, having uninterrupted time to work the pattern meant many fewer mistakes, and I'm hoping that if I do a little at a time I'll have to pick out fewer bad rows. I knit another repeat this evening, only five more repeats until the first half is done. Unstretched (as below), it measures about 16", but it should block out a fair amount larger (I hope).

One nice thing about keeping live stitches on the ends is that I can add more repeats if I have enough yarn. That assumes I can estimate how much yarn I need for the border, of course!

The yarn I'm using is Blue Sky Alpaca's Royal Alpaca in Antique Black, which is more like an espresso brown. It's very nice to work with--extremely soft, not splitty, beautiful rich color. I bought three skeins from the Hilltop Yarns booth at Bumbershoot last summer, after visiting it all weekend. Or rather, I bought two there, and another one at the Eastside store once I picked out a pattern. It's pricey yarn (which gives me more motivation to use every last inch of it), but I bought it on sale so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. What's done is done, it's better that I spent that $$ on yarn and not on overpriced festival beer. Plus, I might have removed the price tags from the skeins when I brought them home, and thrown away the receipt, so who really knows what I spent on them? Not me!

The Blue Sky Alpaca website shows some other really gorgeous colors in this yarn, and I want more of it. More!!! I love that the colors that the yarn comes in so perfectly match the feel of the yarn--classic, elegant, understated. I know, I sound like a bad old-lady car ad, but if you look at the colors you'll understand what I mean. Until I finish this shawl, however, I'm off the market for this yarn.

I haven't quite decided if I'll work on a different old WIP ever day this week, or repeat some of the same items. There are a few (o.k., quite a few) projects sitting right next to me as I type this that I've ignored for weeks and/or months, and even if they won't be back in the everyday rotation it would be nice to make a little progress. In the meantime, I've packed the shawl back into the case I've been carrying it around in, so that it's protected from the elements (the dachshund elements) and the charts are together with the row counter, yarn, and notes. You can't be too careful--it could be another five months before I work on it again, and losing track of the rows would be very, very bad!