The shawl that took a week

Homemade cappuccino

 Coffee.  I've been drinking coffee like it's going out of style.  And it's all because a lot of things are going on in the SpiderKate household. I think I mentioned in a post back in June that some exciting things were going on that I couldn't talk about, well I'm glad that I didn't bring it up because it didn't end up working out.  We had been trying to buy a house and it had proved to be quite the undertaking.  Basically we ended up under contract for a house and after going back and forth about repairs and etc it didn't work out - the sellers were overwhelmed as were we.  I was somewhat disappointed that it didn't work out, but we didn't give up.  The end result is that in the next couple of weeks we found another house, put in an offer, had an inspection and are now set to close in the middle of September!  Going through the experience with the first house really taught me a lot about the process and I felt better prepared when we put in the offer on the second house.  Mr. SpiderKate and I are excited to be moving into a place of our own.

Live Oak Shawlette

In other news, I finally wrote up the pattern for En Fuego Shawl and recruited test knitters.  I'm pretty happy with how the pattern turned out and am grateful that knitters have volunteered to test knit it.  The test knitting is set to be done by end of September and the pattern released shortly after that.  Honestly the test knitting process couldn't be going any better.  The feedback I've received so far has been very helpful and the pattern is looking better and better.  

Shortly after I had the test knitters set up, I decided to cast on for the Live Oak Shawlette by Romi Hill.  My goal was to finish this shawl in one week, but I fell short by a couple of days.  I think that I could have easily finished it in one week, but with setting up the test knitters, apply for a mortgage and etc it made it difficult for me to give it all my attention.  The hardest part of this shawl was probably the BO - but only because of the number of stitches and the type of BO.  The stretchy bind off is a double edge sword for me - I love it and I hate it.  I love that it gives a very stretchy edge, but I hate how long it seems to take since it essentially involves working each stitch twice as you bind off.  I ended up doing half one night and the other half the next morning.  Oh and the blocking!  This piece is not for the faint of heart or those that don't block pieces.  This shawl definitely needing blocking to bring out the leaf edging.  Half way through pinning out the leaves, I realized that I wasn't going to have enough pins to pin out each side of the leaves individually so I ended up having the pins do double duty.  Basically I ended up using one pin to pin out the sides of adjacent leaves.  Overall I'd rate this shawl advanced beginner, though Knitscene rated it intermediate.  

Look at those leaves!