Alpaca Clouds

The lovely dusting of snow yesterday turned into a full-on sticky onslaught of late winter snow. This morning I shoveled some of this heavy stuff and wished I was eight again. It's perfect play snow-- snowballs, snow angels, and snow sculptures. Tomorrow's temp is predicted to be 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so we'll be back to the mud and urban grunge in no time!During the last 11 days I have been knitting and spinning, even though I've been short on proof lately-- so here goes.

The pattern is Madli's Shawl (ravelry link, sorry if you're not a member yet) from Interweave knits. I've eliminated the annoying 'nupp' stitches. These are the bumps you see on other versions when the shawl is held up to the light.

This is one of those projects that I really can't highlight a 'start date' on it. Back when KnitPicks introduced their yarn line, I ordered 4 skeins of Alpaca Cloud. I believe they were $3 each, and now they're about $5. The shawl was started sometime later-- 2 strands held together on a US 6. Toby was a puppy and attacked one yarn cake. (He used to taste yarn that had interesting smells-- especially alpaca and angora! If he wasn't soo darn cute, he might have been tossed out of the house) I've used a wee ball of the slightly marred cake for the bottom edging-- but the rest is from 2 skeins held together. When I originally began it, I only completed about 4 or 5 repeats until six months ago. Then I knit another 6 rounds up until the knitting retreat.

I have to say, those early skeins must have held more than 440 yards! I've completed about 24 repeats so far, and the unblocked shawl stretches across about 3/4 of the width of a queen sized bed. I think there's going to be plenty for another lace project!

So far, I've been project monogamous-- and I'm planning to finish the shawl in a week.