FO: Rock Island

Rock Island was one of those patterns where I saw it, loved it, then decided there was no way I could knit that. The mere thought of knitting a laceweight shawl from the bottom up was just too intimidating. But you know what? I did knit it.
And I love it.




















I will admit that the knitting was reasonably challenging. My first time using lace weight yarn. My first time knitting lace where there are no rest rows - concentration plus! My first time deciding that perhaps this lifeline business is worth investigating, I tried it, needed it, and will definitely use it again if I am ever crazy enough to knit another one of these. Despite the step up in difficulty, it was a fun challenge to do a brand- new-to-me construction.

















The yarn is total luxury. Merino with silk and just a hint of sparkle. It is warm and airy at the same time, reasonably bulky for a lace weight, but still gives a FO that is lightweight and dreamy.
This is a new base for Tri'Coterie and one I volunteered to test knit as I had lined up a Rock Island as a special knit for myself after a year of stress and other awful things and this yarn seemed like a perfect match (it so was!). The colourway is "purple rain" and is available as part of October's offering at Tri'Coterie. I keep exclaiming at how warm and airy this shawl is and now my thoughts keep returning to laceweight cardigans in this yarn...


















I used a little over 500m of laceweight. Enough to make a huge shawl, one of my biggest this year, and enough to complete my 11 shawls in 2011 challenge. Yep. I've knit 11 shawls this year (a post on that later in the week). It doesn't seem that many!
















This one gets my "most proud of" award. So much learnt, and the FO is simply gorgeous. My crappy camera does not do this yarn or this colour justice. It really is just lovely and so soft and warm to wear. I am really quite thrilled with it and keep picking it up to admire.

Is there anything that makes a knitter more happy than a yarn and pattern match made in heaven?