FO: Rainshine

In the wake of last week's casting off disaster I decided to get straight back on the horse and knit another lacy and beaded shawl.  Not wanting to entirely visit the scene of the crime, however, I plumped for a different pattern by the same designer.  When shawl fever first hit me I purchased the Boo Knits Close to You collection so I simply moved on to the second pattern in the e-Book, Rainshine.

I chose this one for a couple of reasons, firstly it is knit in laceweight which I am suddenly quite flush with (stash acquisition post coming up soon!) and secondly it does not have the picot bind off that was taking me about a million years on Heaven Scent.  With hindsight the crochet cast off that I used instead was still a pretty lengthy process but I definitely wasn't ready to picot again so soon!

I picked a laceweight Merino/tussah silk blend that I bought undyed from World of Wool and dyed myself with food colouring.  To be honest I was going for a much deeper blue but this is nice enough. I paired it with turquoise beads which match quite nicely because I was going for a subtle effect.  Unfortunately they don't really show up too well in my photos but I'm hoping they will provide a nice little sparkle in the sunlight.

Knitting this took me way less time than I had imagined, only a week from beginning to end, including about a day spent on the bind off.  The lace was really simple and enjoyable, although I was a little sad when I realised that I didn't get to place any beads until I got to the border.  It turns out that I really like beading, weirdly.  I don't mind that it only has beads on the border, I was just really impatient to get to the beading quicker!  I really love how it turned out and although I was a little worried about how I'd actually wear it I've tried a few ways and actually think it will be very versatile.  This is good new because I think I'm now addicted to making these and have totally cast on the next one in the collection this afternoon.  I need to remember to order another set of foam mats for blocking really soon now though because I didn't really have enough space to give a shawl as brutal a blocking as I'd have liked to.

Righty ho then, I'm off.  Beads to choose and lace to knit, no time to waste!