My Dowland shawl got blocked this weekend, and after the boy mowed the backyard I went out for a photo shoot. It posed beautifully, too. Prepare yourself for a photo-heavy post because it was hard to choose which ones to omit!
I’ll start with the obvious: this is a huge shawl. I used all but 14 grams of my two skeins of Kitty Pride Fibers’ Ocicat Fingering in the color A Bonny Lass. The pattern says you can repeat section eight up to two times to use up more yarn, so I repeated it once. I didn’t want to risk running out of yarn, though I think I could have squeaked through just fine.
The last lace section gave me fits. I had to rip out thirty rows of lace the first time I knit it. The second time went better, but I still had three rows where I ended up off by one stitch, and I just fudged it. I couldn’t stand any more tinking or frogging. I did spot one of the errors when I was pinning it out, where the yarnovers didn’t line up just right, but no one will ever notice it while I’m wearing it, and it doesn’t detract from the overall beauty of the lace pattern.
After I had it all pinned out, I realized I did not pin the scallops correctly, so there are more scallops and they’re closer together than the designer intended. But by then, it was mostly dry and again, I wanted this shawl just to be done, so I’m calling it a design feature.
This was not an easy knit for me but it might be one of my proudest knitting moments. It turned out to be exactly what I wanted from my Bonny yarn, and I can’t wait to have somewhere to wear it to show it off!
I also finally finished and blocked and photographed my 
After blocking, it was 72″, and at first I was afraid that was too long, but now I think it’s perfect. Plenty of length to wrap around however you want!
Sorry for the less than stellar photos; it’s been a little chilly and I’ve been too lazy to get outside for a proper photo shoot.
Won’t that be lovely? I purchased the pattern and got all ready to cast on with my little 2.5 circs…only to see that that size was needed for one section if you were doing a straight bottom edge instead of the kerchief style! For everything else, it recommended a size 4.
I was kind of saving the green (MadTosh in Seaglass) for a fade project, but it looks so good with this mystery gray/green that I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Plus, heck, I can always get another skein of Seaglass green someday if I need it. This one is going into a pretty two-color shawl called 
It’s a great pattern for beginner/intermediate lace knitters, and it’s easy to memorize the repeats…as long as you remember to cast off those stitches to make the staircase edge! I confess, I forgot once and did not go back. And I’ll never notice it!
The pattern is inspired by Harry Potter, which only makes me love it even more. It does say it’s a one-skein wonder, but I used all 438 yards of my skein and wish I’d had more. It came out about 5′ long across the top edge, and I’d like it longer. But the mannequin wears it nicely, so hopefully I can too.
Dragon Hoard also makes yarn — I got some on my vacation! — and you can see their cool stuff on their 
Alma is a single ply fingering weight yarn in 100% merino. It’s labeled superwash but they still recommend you hand wash and dry flat. The colors are all named after inspirational attitudes, like Humility, Generosity, Passion, and Sincerity. I chose Resilience to remind myself that I am resilient! Well, that and I liked the colors in the photo. They also designed the colors to pair well together, with complementary solids and multi-colors. 
I chose this pattern because of the best part about Alma: the yardage! It’s a generous 546 yards per 100 grams, which means you have plenty of yarn to make a good-sized single-skein shawl. I knit the pattern with no modifications and ended up with six grams left. Honestly, I love everything about this yarn. It did have one knot in it, but that’s within normal standards, and it washed and blocked beautifully.
I’m not completely convinced I chose the right pattern to show off the yarn; I’m wondering if something more stockinette-based would have been better. But this was a fun pattern to knit — I guess I really am learning to appreciate short rows — and I loved having the yardage in one skein for a nice big shawl. The yarn retails for around $30 per skein, which I typically pay anyway for my good yarns, so I’d buy this one in a heartbeat. Especially since I can feel good about buying Manos yarns, which are hand-dyed by artisans and help support families in Uruguay! It’s available in yarn stores now, and you can find the closest one to you 
bonnyknits 