One of the secret projects I’ve been working on in recent weeks is my sister’s birthday present. The Springtime Bandit shawl, for Fee, who turned 28 last week.
I wouldn’t have thought to make her a shawl. It didn’t strike me as something she’d wear but she picked up one of mine last year and declared she’d love one, so I filed the idea away for her birthday. Of course, having a birthday in the scorching heat of January is not conducive to knitted gifts, but they can always be saved for later.
This means of course that the photo shoot has to be fast. It was hot here today, too hot for alpaca shawls, but Fee knows the drill.
Pale blue is definitely her colour isn’t it? Looks great on her.
This was such a fast shawl. Ten days from start to finish, which was probably really only five given it was too hot to work on it for much of that time so I only worked on it early in the day or late at night on half those days. 8ply, small shawls are one of the best instant gratification projects out there.
I like that it’s not really given to the pointy edges. As much as I like those, I think this shawl works just fine without them.
And I love the big leaves in the edging too. They’re huge, adding a nice dramatic effect to the shawl.
So the yarn is a discontinued Bendigo Woollen Mills alpaca/merino blend called Caprice. I bought it years ago for a jumper for myself that was a failed project. It sat around for a while waiting to be something else and I think this is a fine end to the story. There’s plenty left over for maybe something for Alice, so they can match, like maybe a little cardigan or something because that would be just too cute.
Speaking of Alice, she of course had to play along. When we were taking this next photo, one of her older siblings declared ‘It’s the Virgin Mary!’
And now I want to go digging through the stash to find something so I can make one of these for myself, but winter’s a while off yet and I’ve got too many other things on the go. Many birthdays in my family occur in the first few months, not least of all Alice’s first, which is looming and I’ve not yet begun!
Flickr set here and Raverly project page here.
The important thing to note about this pattern is that the designer doesn’t ask for payment, but rather a donation to the PSPCA – the Pennsylvanian equivalent of our RSPCA instead. I am sure the designer will agree that donating to our local version is just fine.
Bells
