Kiri

Project: Kiri
Designer: Polly Outhwaite, All Tangled Up
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK, 4 1/4 skeins
Color: 61544
Needles: Size 9 Addi Turbo 24" and 40" circulars
Size after blocking: bigger than I'd expected, with 10 repeats of Chart 2 done

Here, reclining on a bench at my outdoor mall. Close-up of the leafy lace. One of the best aspects of this pattern is that, if you stick with it for more than ten minutes of knitting, you will embed the pattern into your mind and make far fewer mistakes than seem to happen on more complicated lace structures. And it's beautiful, which is the best part.

Here, a detail of the lace:

And here, the recipient doing a bit of modeling. What you can't see is our little stream, which is right outside the back door of the store. Ducks and red-winged blackbirds hang out, adding lovely bird calls and the gurgle of the stream to my lunch hour, when I open the back door, stick a folding chair outside, and enjoy nature for a few minutes. Ah, the Midwest and its glories.
A silly picture. Did I suggest something about flying?
If I Had It to Do Over Again: I love this yarn. Easy to work with, feels great against your hands (due to the silk), has nice resilience (due to the alpaca), and the color is perfect: just the right blue. The only drawback is that I've noticed that my Shetland Triangle shawl, made from the same yarn, has started to show signs of aging: a slight blurriness at the surface, not pills so much as haziness and a bit of decomposition of the fiber. (You can read more in Clara Parkes' review of the Alpaca Silk line, including her helpful suggestions.) But I urged the recipient to wear it and not to save it for special occasions, and when it wears out, it wears out.

The only other thought: there's something mysterious about sizing this shawl. It looks small at eight or nine repeats of the main lace chart, and then grows enormously as you complete the tenth repeat. Very deceptive. And then you block it, and it gets even bigger. Next time I'd do eight repeats, and then possibly be able to complete the shawl with 4 instead of 5 skeins of yarn.