Fiori Di Sole - Finished!

I finally finished Thursday night. Charts F, G, H and I are the hardest. The crochet bind off is also a bit tricky. It is all chains and slip stitches, but slip stitching 5 live stitches from the shawl together can be challenging, especially when you are working with a 2.25mm crochet hook and lace weight yarn - I don’t think I would try this with silk.

For the bind off I held the working yarn in my left hand, and had the end of the knitting needle with the live stitches also in my left hand - sort of as if I were knitting continental. When chaining the live stitches together I would slip the bunch onto the crochet hook, wrap the yarn around the hook, rotate the hook so that it faced down towards the bottom of the stitches and gently pull the yarn through. I generally did not pull through the live border stitches and the stitch on the crochet hook all in a single move, but instead did it in two steps. It can be a bit tricksy, especially when you have stitches that were yarn overs on the next to the last row, and a couple of times I did lose the yarn, or the live stitches leaped off the crochet hook.   They were a pain to pick up, and swearing was involved.

When pulling the yarn through the live border stitches I would gently hold that bunch of stitches with my thumb and middle finger, keeping a slight tension on them so they stretched out a little. That seemed to make it easier.

It took me an hour to pin because of all of those crochet chain stitch loops.  I ran blocking wires through the two outermost loops and then went back and pinned out each loop, removing the blocking wires as I went.

Here is a beauty shot.  The shawl is an absolute dream to wear, soft, light, wonderful drape.

Pattern - Fiori di Sole by Rosemary (Romi) Hill
Yarn - Serenity Lace, by Zen Yarn Garden, color - On Fire
 
While I have been focusing on this shawl, it isn't the only thing I've been up to.  I have two more Fiesta Yarns pullovers on the needles, Barcelona and Caribbean.  I am almost done with the body on the Barcelona pullover, but have only just started the Caribbean pullover, which is my third Camp Loopy project.  I will get lots of knitting done on those two pullovers today as we are taking Stephen back to Virginia Tech - 8 hours of knitting in the car.  I have also been continuing to organize and catalog my yarn stash, and have made great progress.  Of course, organizing the yarn is only one small step in getting my studio organized, there is also the fabric stash and all of the sewing patterns, not to mention the books and magazines...but I will get there.