Lord, I was born a travelin'--er--woman

I buy quite a bit of sock yarn. Maybe more than quite a bit. Certainly more than necessary, as I managed to complete, what?, one pair of socks last year? But there's just something about sock yarn. The variety of colors. The texture of the fiber. The tight twist. Something. So, like I said, I buy quite a bit of sock yarn. And now, I've finally figured out what I'm going to do with it all:


Pattern: Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante
Yarn: Sundara sock yarn in Beaded Turquoise (1 skein)

Shawls in fingering weight. Brilliant. I absolutely loved this project from start to finish. Even as I got to the last rows and they seemed endless, I still loved it. I haven't had much luck with lace weight shawls or stoles (I have a half-finished Print o' the Wave stole hibernating in my WIP basket that hasn't been too terribly troublesome so far, just sloooooooow), but this sock yarn dealy worked out quite well. After blocking, it's still quite light and floaty, but it was much faster to get through, and the yarn much easier to work with. Plus, one skein is just the perfect amount to complete a shawl large enough to drape over the shoulders, but not so large it couldn't double as a scarf.

What I could really use is some practice pinning out lace. Tricky. The patterned part turned out fine, but the supposedly-straight part across the top is a bit wonky. I'll just have to try again. Soon.

And the pattern itself--great. Not a single problem, easy to follow, and it comes with charted and written instructions, so chart-phobes won't miss out. I did 3 repeats of the Chart A, and I'm glad I did, or I would've come out with a lot of useless, leftover yarn.

I did manage to flub up the bind off--dropped a stitch somewhere along the way, and discovered it while I was pinning the durn thing out--but I patched it up ok, I don't think anyone would notice (it's the first point to the right of the center point, in case you want to check!)

A few outtake photos of me attempting to take photos of myself in the shawl, stupidly wearing a tshirt almost the same color. Must get a gorillapod!