Knitting – off the needles!

I’ve had a great deal of knitting time over the past several months as I’ve been recuperating.  Mostly I’ve knit gifts for others.  This little “one-skein” asymmetrical shawl just came off the needles this weekend.  I love it.  Love the color.  Love Like the yarn a lot.  And it’s destined to belong to someone else too!

Ardent

The pattern is called Ardent by designer Janina Kallio.  It uses one skein, is knit on the bias, and is all knit – NO PURLS at all.   It’s the first pattern of hers that I have knit and it turned out quite well except I did find the side without all the increases to be a bit messy in the eyelet section for my liking. (The irregularities did block out pretty well though.)  I think next time I might slip the first stitch at the end and see how that goes.  I used Alpaca Sox fingering yarn – another first for me.  It’s a blend of alpaca, merino, and nylon in a colorway (1885) called Orange Blush.  It reminds of a pink grapefruit.  I’m glad I bought extra because I do love the color a lot – even though orange typically isn’t a color I would turn to.   I think I used a size 5 needle and I had a tiny bit of the ball left over.  My only hesitation is that the alpaca in this yarn seems to be a little “hairy”.  You hand-spinnners out there know what I mean; there were these longer fibers that stuck out a lot.

Now, I’m off to finish the pair of socks I have on the needles.