cora filed

Finally, at last, the Cora/Neapolitan Ice Cream Shawl is done. Not just done with the knitting, but done with the washing, the blocking, even done with the photo-ing. Done, done, and ready to be done with as I please, and if that means wadding it up into a ball, dumping it on top of the filing cabinet, and forgetting about it for months, it is done to be done with. (The fact that I might just be waiting for an invite to an 'event' - and I'm really not fussy here, any kind of 'event', which involves hanging around until the summer evenings turn cool, and something simple must needs be draped to keep me warm, and I can pretend that I am elegant, really, really shouldn't have anything to do with whether I wear Cora or not, but hey, I'm only human, and I want to show it off at somewhere a little bit nicer than the local pub.)

The facts:

Can't remember when I started Cora, but it was sometime this year, and, even more amazingly, she has only been hanging around since I bought her at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show last November. (The shawl pin, shown below, also came from the same show, but you think I can remember from whom?)

It is, but of course, a Sharon Miller design (though not her colours, which were just a little too pink), goddess of all things lacy.

A remarkably trouble free knit - which is down to two reasons. Shetland wool, baby (Jamieson's Ultra, this time) - my choice of desert island yarn, no matter the weight, because it just grabs me, baby. And the good luck knitting markers from Mary-Lou, which have stuck with this project from the very start (scroll down to seem them in action). Not that I believe in luck, but the lack of dropped stitches, come blocking time, has got to be down to something....

A couple of other thoughts. First, may I never see feather and fan again, or at least for a long, long time. Yes, pretty, yes, effective, yes, simple to learn. But on a round of close to 1,000 stitches, and may the knitting saints forgive me, but more boring that purling close to 1,000 stitches. And second, the shawl is large (just over 5 foot square, and it could have gone further), I am short (just, just over 5 foot, and some people still owe me an eating of their hat, because I broke the 60 inches), so in the triangular shot, the dreaded pointing finger of look, look, large ass(crack) here is avoided. Yippee.

So I leave you with some photos, the obligatory cat claiming ownership;

the laundry line shot;
the close up, with adornment;
and the imagine a person inside the elegant drape shot;

And I think, in honour of the luck that Mary-Lou's stitch markers brought, I shall rename her 'The Wimseycal Shawl'.