Salvia Sample Knit - Finished!

After a week of steady knitting (and reading) I've finished up the Salvia Sample Knit.  I didn't get any progress pictures because I was knitting on 32 inch circulars and the project quickly became a bunched up pile of yarny-lacy-goodness.  The yarn was wonderful to work with.  Great body, and knit up on the US 7 needles, a wonderful fluid drape.  I think this is a yarn that takes being knit up a little loosely very well.  The yarn itself is nice to handle, 4-ply, but not so tightly twisted that it is hard, and not so loose that it lacks structure.

Because of the shawl construction, blocking was a bit of a challenge.

I laid the wet shawl out on the blocking maps and pulled and pushed it gently into shape, but given the way it is constructed there is a bump at the neck edge where it was started.  This doesn't seem to affect things too much once you take it off the blocking wire.  That section just sort of collapses on itself.  The design calls for two colors, but this one was done with 5.  The bind off is supposed to be in the contrast color (the color of the lace sections).  I just picked one of the colors for the bind off - in this case the green.  I think the design would really look great with a picot bind off - maybe even a beaded picot bind off to give the shawl a little swing.

Pattern:  Salvia by Heidi Alander
Yarn:  Not really sure, the label says The Unique Sheep Rare Breed, it's a silk wool blend with 4 plies
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Salvia Sample Knit

I was contacted this past week to see if I would be interested in knitting a sample for the Unique Sheep using a new yarn.  The pattern looked like an easy and quick knit, so I said yes.  The yarn arrived on this past Thursday and I caked it all up yesterday morning and got the pattern all set up in knitCompanion.  I started out knitting on US 6 needles, but decided after looking at the pictures and checking my yarn usage to go up to US 7 (the pattern suggests either size - it also has a garter stitch swatch, ugh).  The pictures indicated that the shawl was more loosely knit and more drapey than I was getting with US 6.

Pattern:  Salvia by Heidi Alander
Yarn:  Not really sure, the label says The Unique Sheep Rare Breed, it's a silk wool blend with 4 plies
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)