Boo Knits 2017 Challenge

Last year I knitted 5 shawls from Boo Knits pattern.  At that point you'd think I was done, but no, instead I signed up to take part in the Boo Knits 2017 challenge which involves knitting at least 10 Boos during 2017.  The finer points can be found here, but simply I need to knit 10 shawls from Boo Knits patterns, 2 of which will be Mystery Knit Alongs announced later in the year and 1 of which must be a triangular shawl.  For the other 7, the world is my oyster.  Of course we don't have to stop at 10 shawls, which is good because it is February and I'm already working on Number 5!

So here we go, lots of lace and beads ahead!

I started the year with a Promise Me, in Rowan Kidsilk Night with some glorious Czech etched beads.  This is very fluffy and romantic and is definitely a pattern I will be revisiting soon because I'd like to add at least another pattern repeat for a larger lacier shawl.  I shall not, however be revisiting the yarn for this sort of project.  It breaks far too easily and there was a bit of a emergency while I was blocking.  I fixed it quickly but it was a bit of a lesson in choosing yarn carefully.

Next up was Sweet Dreams, in Fyberpates Scrumptious 4ply.  I only bought 1 skein of this beautiful yarn so I knew this was going to be a smallish shawl.  I know I knit a little tightly so I thought I'd probably need to add at least an extra repeat to get a decent sized shawl.  I used this shawl calculator so I wouldn't end up playing yarn chicken.  I started by working a few extra stockinette rows before moving on to the lace section, hoping that I might have been able to also squeeze in an extra lace repeat, but alas, I wouldn't have quite had enough yarn for that.  I sort of wish now that I'd skipped the extra plain rows and done the extra lace but I'm still very happy with this shawl even so.  This is such a lovely pattern the yarn is fab and the gold lined beads catch the light and sparkle for a bit of bling.  I LOVE this one! I even did a picot bind off because this shawl deserves it.

Straight after I went for another little 4ply shawl and knit Heaven Scent using Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in the Frozen colourway.  I'd intended this shawl to be a Christmas gift, but didn't get to it in time, so I'll be putting this away for next Christmas instead.  This is my second time knitting Heaven Scent, you may remember that the last one met with disaster (thy name be Felicity!) when I was casting off and is still sitting in a corner waiting to be unravelled.  This one turned out fine though.  I went for etched beads again because I love them, these have flashes of blue and yellow and finish the shawl off nicely

For shawl 4 I decided to go for a bit of a larger project, knitting Dare to Dream with Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace.  This yarn has 1000m to 100g grams so is really quite fine indeed.  I used the Wine Gum colour which is just the most beautiful shade of green and I went for matte black beads which mostly blend in, but because there are quite a lot of beads clustered together on this shawl I figured a more bling bead might be a bit overwhelming.  I think I did 3 repeats of the main pattern to make a good sized shawl.  I'm really happy with the size and I have over half of the yarn left so I can knit an even bigger one with the leftovers!

So now I'm working on number 5. I don't have any photos of that yet so I'll wait until it's done to share it.  I've got to say I've surprised myself by how far into this challenge I have got in such a short time.  I think it's the miserable grey weather that's done it, all I've really wanted to do is curl up on the sofa and knit.  Once the sun returns I'm sure I'll slow down and be glad of the head start I've given myself.