Aeolian

I started and finished Aeolian while on holiday. Then it sat in a drawer here for ten days while I tried to figure out where to block it. It turns out, the bed worked great.


Yarn: Malabrigo lace, baby! In "Buscando azul", bought during a long ago field trip to Get Knitted; shoulderette used about 40g of the 50g skein.
Needles: 3.5mm Addi Turbos
Pattern: the lovely Aeolian, from Knitty Spring '09, by Elizabeth Freeman; shoulderette version

Notes: This was a total breeze to knit. I even got the hang of the nupps after only the first couple. I knit this exactly as written for the small shoulderette version, except without beads. I had a dickens of a time blocking it though. I didn't know what the heck "The shawl will block to slightly more than a triangle" meant. "More than a triangle"? Wha? I looked at a bunch of pictures of blocking Aeolians on Ravelry and got the jist, though. Apparently, "more than a triangle" is this:


I wasn't really happy with my blocking. I felt that the nupped "flowers" of the edging could have been stretched more, but there wasn't room, if you know what I mean. The body of the shawl wanted to be "slightly more than a triangle" but the edging wanted to be way more than triangle. If I could have blocked in 3-D, the edging would have given a ruffled effect.

Speaking of the nupps...I say I got the hang of them, but maybe not. See this close-up here?


Those red arrows point to nupps. Can you see them? Of course not. But can you see them here?


Yes you can. On the reverse side. Those bastard nupps, which weren't exactly easy to make, popped out on the wrong side. I thought blocking would help. But no. Traitors.

But overall, it's a gorgeous shawl, and the Malabrigo lace makes it basically weightless. It's featherlight. I kind of wished I'd used beads, which would have anchored it in case I encounter a slight breeze. I do note the yarn is a single and spun very loosely- it feels like it'll felt if you look at it weird.


The finished size is roughly 42in/107cm from tip to tip, and 20in/51cm from centre to point. Because I had a fifth of the yarn left over, I could probably have added a few repeats- the pattern is great because it tells you how to work varying sizes.

It's a beautiful, delicate shawl, but I'll probably be wearing it like this, where you can see the laciness so well.


I think I'll wear it to the iknit show tomorrow. Say hi if you see me!