The Liliac Leaf Shawl: Finally finished!!!

The Liliac Leaf Shawl is FINALLY finished!!

I love to see the pattern blossom after blocking. It looks so pretty!!

To had to put a little bit of thinking on how to block the stole. I usually use the bed which is normally big enough to hold shawls but this time this stole was way to long. I had to add a little piece to the bed. To do so I used a foam matress and my new Ikea bobbin lace pillow. It worked pretty well.

Blocking: wires and pins make miracles!

Grafting is like magic. It is barely possible to say where the grafting is. Isn't it?

The liliac leaf pattern. The pattern has so much movement  and that is thanks to the garter stitch frame around each leave.

Blocking has become so much easier since I got the blocking wires. Holy blocking wires. They don't only make the hole process easier but also the result is a lot better. The straight borders become really straight and the scallops look a lot more beautiful!

Notes about the shawl:

* Body pattern: Liliac Leaf Pattern 1 from the book The Haapsalu Shawl.

* Edge pattern: Taken from Madli Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia.

* 3 1/2  balls of Loðband (icelandic lace yarn) Each ball is 50g.

* Needles: 5.0 for casting on and off and 4.0 for knitting.

* Casted on 100 stitches using the knitted on cast on technique (my favourite for shawls).

* Made 34 repeats  of the 16 rows leaf pattern slipping the first stitch with the yarn in front of every row.

* Made two edges that I grafted to the each end of the body. When grafting watch the tension, it is ver easy to have an extremely tense graft with will be a problem when it comes to blocking.

*Final measurements: 62 x 230cm

The hole thing :)

It is too bright outside but I guess that it is still possible to see the pattern.

Folded, ready to be packed and given :)

I am very, very, very, very happy with the result. It exceeded all my expectations :)