FO: Spirit of Friendship

A couple of weeks ago my Facebook 'On This Day' thingy popped up and reminded me that this time last year I had already completed 4 shawls for my Boo Knits challenge. At that points I was just finishing up on my second one for this year and I felt momentarily demoralised until I thought about and realised that all 4 of those shawls were pretty small. They are all beautiful and I do wear them with joy but I do prefer a much larger shawl and those take much longer to knit. Today I present you my largest shawl so far, Spirit of Friendship by Boo Knits

Not only is this thing pretty big but it is really soft and drapey and warm, a real hug of a shawl. While I do love my 100% silk shawls, they block out so nicely and the lace stays looking tip top for ages but every now and again it's nice to knit something that I can throw on when it's chilly in the house or to keep me really toast during a particularly wintery school run. So for this shawl I chose to use DROPS Baby Alpaca Silk, partly because it is warm and soft with some strength added by 30% silk content, but also because it was really inexpensive during the DROPS Alpaca Party in December! I went for black because I don't actually have a black shawl yet and I wanted it to go with anything.

Knitting this shawl was super simple and the pattern was very intuitive. The simple lace panel keeps things interesting with the stockinette sections keeping things moving along quickly. Beading only happens once you hey to the lace border but there are quite a lot of beads in that section so those border rows do take much longer to complete. I chose to use size 6/0 Miyuki black lined crystal AB cube beads. The have a lovely rainbow sparkle to them and I thin they look really special.

All in all I'm really happy with this one and honestly I've barely taken it off since I blocked it. The only real problem I have with it is that it's making all my other shawls look tiny!