Blocking and baking

There's pie in the oven and pi on the mats.

Simple Lace Pi Shawl

I finally got around to blocking my newest Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi shawl late last night.  It's freaking huge!  It measures 57 inches in diameter.  It also has two spots where, well, I don't know what happened.  It looks like I dropped a stitch, but there's a live top & bottom stitch, almost like the yarn broke.  Except there's no loose, broken yarn ends.  What ever happened, it's caused two big ol' holes that I'll need to repair.  Other than that, I'm quite pleased with it.  It's large enough to fold up & wrap around my neck scarf style and light enough that I'll be able to stand to wear it folded up & wrapped around my neck scarf style.  It's also light enough to cram into my purse and big enough to use as a blanket in chilly movie theaters.  In other words, it turned out just as I'd envisioned.

If you're interested, for this Pi shawl, I used Tanis Fiber Arts Pink Label lace weight merino in the Midnight colorway.  I used almost two full skeins.  Remember me complaining about how long the bind off was taking?  It turns out, I had a pretty good reason to complain.  I started the second skein just three rows before I began the ruffle.  The ruffle used up almost an entire skein.  Did you get that? The ruffle used up almost an entire skein.  The 57 inch shawl body was knit with one skein, the less than 10 rows of ruffle used up the other skein.  Holy guacamole!  No wonder it took me a month to knit the ruffle's icord bind off.

Another interesting tid-bit....  While this photo of the shawl is horrible and the color is off, you can still see the slight color difference between the shawl's body and the ruffle.  Two skeins of the same yarn, same colorway, and purchased at the same time.  It just goes to show the unpredictability of hand dyed yarn.  I'm loving the design element that unpredictability created on my shawl though.

Yesterday was pretty productive.  Not only did I block the Pi shawl, I also finished my North Pole socks.

North Pole Socks

And yes, my left foot is that much bigger than my right.  Pretty crazy, right?

Anyway... the socks - I love them.  No I don't, I LOVE them!  They fit perfectly, they're warm as toast, thick enough for cooler temperatures but not so thick I can't get my shoes on over them, and, wait for it....  The stripes match!

Boy, Google knows me well.  I just Googled Regia North Pole Color yarn in order to provide you with a link and Google automatically took me to a Ravelry page.  In any event, the yarn was Regia North Pole Color, a machine washable wool, and I used #US 2 needles.  I'm crazy about the yarn and hope Google taking me straight to Ravelry doesn't mean that it's not made anymore.  I'd love to get my hands on a few dozen more skeins.