Run away! It's a finished object!

So, I was taken with a finishing fervour last night and decided to sew in all the ends on my version of Shimmer, which had been languishing in the bottom of my stash pile for longer than I care to think about. I finished the knitting back in August, but shhh - don't tell anyone. I can't believe it took me 2 months to get around to sewing her up, but I have to say I really, really hate large amounts of finishing. I know Montse Stanley encourages you to see it as part of the creative process, but frankly it's not doing it for me. I just find it a chore and will do almost anything to put it off, which makes yesterday's fervour even more miraculous.

Anyway, here are the fruits of my labours. The pattern for this garment is available over at http://knitty.com. I substituted Rowan Kid Classic in Lavender Ice for the recommended yarn, which has not only made the shrug very soft but has also removed any possibility of an actual shimmer from my wardrobe. That is a good thing as I'm not really a shimmery kind of gal. More of the floofy kind really. Perhaps I should rechristen my version Floofer :)

Anyway, here is a front view taken by Mr A, thus neatly obscuring the tapered sleeve edging which was one of the things that attracted me to this pattern in the first place. *sigh*


Shimmer, except not shimmery

And here is a back view to show you the diamond lace pattern on the shrug's back.


Shimmer back view

This is my first lace pattern of any kind. I am rather pleased with it.

So what would I do differently were I to knit it again?

1. I would shorten the sleeves by about 3/4". The cuffs of this shrug are supposed to come down over your wrists, but I still think the sleeves are a little too long.

2, I would gather the initial ruffles at the bottom of each sleeve more tightly than they are now, so as to emphasise the outward flare of the cuffs.

The most difficult thing about this pattern was keeping the lace stitches straight whilst doing the raglan decreases. That called from some inginuity at times to make sure that I ended up with the right number of stitches in roughly the right places. It was made much easier by using a stitch marker every ten stitches and counting obsessionally at the ends of every row. And because I didn't have any stitchmarkers of the right size I ended up using paperclips, which seemed to work just as well. Another handy idea that I got from someone's blog. If you're reading this, thank you!

Well I had loads more I wanted to post about but I am falling asleep at my keyboard here so it'll have to wait. See you in the morning :)