Peacock Shawl - Finished!

I finished up my Peacock Shawl this past Wednesday and I am delighted with how it came out.  I extended the pattern to use up all of my yarn, and ended up needing more, running out with six rows and the bind off to go.  Fortunately I had a skein of Zen Yarn Garden Sturdy Sock in my stash that went well with skeins 7 and 8 from the set, containing some of the same greens and taking things into the lighter colors as you can see.  Oh the advantages of a ginormous stash, and also these are my favorite colors, so it wasn’t a stretch to find a similar enough skein.

I did have one set back, when I decided that the original way that I had extended the pattern just wasn’t working out.  I had gone a bit nuts on the beads, I didn’t like the way that I had closed up the peacock eye, and I had also started using the final chart for the center panel and I didn’t like how that was working out - too much stockinette stitch and I just didn’t think it would block out well.  So, I spent an eventing putting in an afterthought life line in the row right before I started my changes (10 rows back), ripped back, got all my stitches back on to my needles, and went back and reworked the chart for the sides - this time simply extending the peacock eye motif, cutting back on the beads (just one per eye) and decided to just keep using the center chart C for the rest of the shawl.

The shawl is huge, taking all of my newer gridded blocking mats, plus some of my older Knit Picks ones.  You can see how I extended the peacock eye motif as well as the center panel.  I really like how it came out.

Pattern:  Peacock Shawl by Sivia Harding

Yarn:  Yarn Fairy Fairy Sock Medium and Zen Yarn Garden Sturdy Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)