Sweet Peas and Celestial Alpaca

Due to procrastination, the following two shawls have been completed and off the needles for some time, but I only just this weekend washed, blocked, and photographed them.

The first is a Citron, modified for length to accommodate not-quite-enough yarn, knit with Knit Picks Gossamer, which is lace weight merino that has been discontinued. Its a nice, squishy yarn, and this particular pattern is just the sort of thing that's great for a high-contrast multicolor yarn. Too much structural detail can get lost in the activity of the colors, but this pattern seems to work it. I've shown here the yarn for comparison and a clip of the finished shawlette. Size of the finished object is smallish, but enough to use as a colorful scarf.

Also blocked today was my take on the Celestial Trio pattern, using a boutique DK Alpaca yarn I purchased several years back at the first MD Sheep and Wool Festival I attended. - Totally worth attending, by the way, biggest festival of its kind I hear, with attendance in the 10's of thousands.





Both patterns are based on pi shawl shaping, and both are well written and easy to knit. The pi shawl style I believe was first introduced to knitting literature by Elizabeth Zimmerman in Knitting Around. This is a highly recommended book, as are all of EZ's books, by many knitters. She is well known for her preference to teach knitters to knit and think on their feet, rather than regurgitate pattern directions (not that there's anything wrong with that, it just limits you a bit). She's also rather entertaining.