My Second Lace Shawl

I just love knitting lace.  I made a shawl earlier in the year while taking the online course, Mastering Lace Shawls at Craftsy.com with instructor Laura Nelkin.  Once I finished, I immediately began a second shawl from the same course.  I just finished it this week and I love it.

I ended up running out of yarn with only a tiny section of binding off left to do.  I had made a gauge swatch and really shouldn't have run out of yarn...but I did.  I went back to the yarn store where I had purchased the yarn hoping that they would still have some of it.  They didn't.  In fact, the shop owner told me that she had sold the last skein the day before I went in.  *sigh*  She told me they would be getting more in but wouldn't be putting an order in until the end of July! So, I ended up ordering online from Jimmy Beans wool and was completely satisfied with my purchase.  It came quickly and, believe it or not it, was the same dye lot.    I think it took me longer to wind the yarn than it did to finish knitting the shawl.

Jenna (6) and Emma (9) were my yarn winding helpers.  Jenna held the yarn the entire time.Emma came over to help unwind it for me when we were almost done so I could just wind it without stopping. 433 yards of winding by hand! One of the advantages of buying yarn in a shop is that they'll wind it for you!

Here it is almost finished. All I had left to bind off was where the orange stitch markers are on the right hand side when I ran out of yarn. 

I only needed to use about half of this tiny bit of yarn to finish. (The rest of the yarn is wound and not pictured.  There was a knot in the yarn near the end and this is how much yarn was after the knot.  Don't you hate that??)

If you don't know, a lace shawl really doesn't look good until it is blocked.  Blocked involves getting the shawl wet and placing or pinning it out so it dries in the shape you want it.  It also makes your finished product much larger than if you didn't block it.

a different view of the blocking-I used wires and pins on a blocking mat

Here it is all finished.

So, what's next?  I am planning to make this same shawl in a lace weight merino wool  in a larger size.  I also plan to start working with beads.  I am signed up for Laura Nelkin's other Craftsy course, Knitting with Beads.  It starts off easy with a beaded pioneer cuff and then graduates to a shawl.  There are directions for knitting beads into the shawl pictured here too and I may end up beading that.  I think it will take me a long time to knit the bigger lace weight shawl but I am excited to do it.  I also have been making some cotton dishcloths and I'm working on a heavier acrylic yarn shawl as well.

I can't say enough about the Craftsy.com courses.  I have learned so much and if you get them on sale they are extremely reasonable.  Sign up for their newsletter so you can find out what is on sale.

The shawl pictured here is called Clarus. I knit it in Berroco Ultra Fine Alpaca (winter white).