Yunno I'm all about the shawls, 'bout the shawls, no sweaters...

Today, mah knitta and I went on an adventure to a brand new (to us anyway) knitting store called Tricotheque Montreal. It's on Graham street in TMR (aka Town of Mont Royal for the non-natives), and looks like a super cute little shop. Sadly though, it was closed, and will be for the rest of the week. Boo-urns. Maybe next week.
Oh well, on to the knits!

Shawl progress! Dragonfly Wings is finished! When I last wrote, I had frogged several rows, and was scared to go forward, but I did get everything figured out. I painstakingly went over the previous rows stitches by following the chart and found all the dropped stitches (18! eek) and used locking stitch markers so that when it came time to knit, I could just pick them up as I knit. It took a vry vry long time, but I am so proud of myself for getting it fixed.
Anyway, I finished the last of the lace knitting last Wednesday and waited until Thursday to do the bind off. Which took 2 HOURS. ugh. It was a super stretchy purlwise bind off, which I hope I never have to use again. It wasn't difficult, just loooong.
Then I soaked it, and blocked it, and every time I walked by the shawl on the blocking mats, I would stop for a couple of seconds and admire it. Before blocking:

                                                                  during blocking:

                                                                 After Blocking

 I really think this is the most beautiful thing I've knit. Taking pictures was difficult because it's been too cold to go outside and do a photo shoot, and the variegated colourway doesn't photograph well inside, even in the most natura light. But here is moi, wearing the shawl.

After finishing Dragonfly Wings, I neeeeeeded to cast on another shawl, right friggin' meow! I originally wanted to cast on Artesian, but I couldn't find the right yarn in stash. I'll also admit to being some what put off by the need for numbered stitch markers.
Digging through my stash, I came across some Madeline Tosh sock in Opaline. I immediately needed to make something with it. No socks for this beauty, enter  Smash By Rebecca Darylin.
It has some nifty little techniques that I haven't used before like Slyf (or slwyif), which makes for an I-cord edging that looks really lovely,  and dropping stitches. (yay for dropping stitches that don't have to be picked up)
I'll get to work down my stash a little-it calls for 285 yrds of yarn A (which will be the madtosh), and 175 yrds of colour B. I have some shelridge yarns in Iris which I think would look quite nice with the opaline. The shelridge yarns had been used for a contrasting heel flap and cuff, on just one sock, so there should be enough. But I may go to maison tricote next week and hold the shawl up to other colours to see what goes best. My issue with the Shelridge yarns Iris is that it has flecks of darker and lighter purples and even some flecks of blue. I'm thinking I need a completely solid yarn to complement the Opaline-which is silvery and has flecks of (almost metallic) pale purple, pink, blue, olive and yellow. My description is not doing it justice, but just google it, it's really lovely.
Progress pictures of Smash:

And then, this weekend, while introducing the 17yr old to the absolute joy that is Island of Dr Moreau (1996), I cast on yet another shawl. The Coldest Summer shawl by Sharon Kresge. I'm using some ooooold stashed Miss Babs Yowza Whatta Skein in Candied Pecan, which is a medium bronze-brown. (When I ordered it, I was expecting a light brown, so I was kind of disappointed, but I do like the colour now, I think it will look great with my brown corduroy jacket.) It only took 4 days to knit, it  knit up very, very quickly, but it is way smaller than I'd like.   I've re-read the pattern a couple of times, and I really don't see any issue with the directions or the way I followed them. So i'm going to undo the bind off, rip out all the lace and add a few more inches of stockinette before doing the lace sections.
Which kind of sucks. Meh. So here, look at some pictures of the too small shawl that has just been ripped back.

I'm going to make a pair of fingerless mitts with the leftover Yowza, from a pattern called Optimistic mitts. I've made them before (see here if interested) and I love them, I've worn them a ton, but they look pretty scraggly now, the yarn did not hold up well. I think the Yowza will be a better yarn to show off the twisted stitches and the seed stitch.


To finish off this post, a few weeks (months?)back I wrote about the super cute kitty needle gauge  I bought at Maison Tricote. I found out that it was made by a company called Retromantic Fripperies and they have loads of nifty things! Here is the needle gauge, just to refresh your memory.

This is not a paid advertisement in any way, I just really like their things!