A Finished Shawl, a Couple WIP's and an Etsy Sale

     Lots to share today. I finished the Lokum shawl on Wednesday, blocked it yesterday and got up early today to take some pictures before my daughter went to school this morning. However, I didn't like any of the pictures she took so I ended up taking my own pictures (over 50 of them) to get some I liked. Of course, I cast on something new as soon as Lokum was done. I'm also making some progress on my Fogliame cardigan and one of my favourite Etsy shops is having a sale this month.  Let's get started.

     First up is the Lokum shawl. Pattern by Jen Lucas. Yarn is Misti Alpaca, hand painted sock yarn in the Treefrog colorway. Love the yarn and the pattern. So soft and full of texture. I didn't block the shawl aggressively width wise as I wanted to keep the texture but I did stretch it out, length wise, and got all the little picots on the edge to stick out. Glad I have blocking wires (thanks mom).

     Shawl blends into the grassy background. Good length. And it doesn't appear that "stripey" in real life. I'm also wearing my Low Tide cardigan.

Trying to get a nice picture outside.

Tried again inside.

     More pictures of the texture since I love it so much. And the lovely little picots too. Jen doesn't call them picots in the pattern but I don't know what else to call them. I was a little short on yarn and wasn't able to do the last 2 pattern repeats but I'm not complaining. My skein was 50 yards less than the recommended yarn so I was happy to get 54 of 56 repeats done.

More texture.

And more with the edge. I obviously can't recommend this pattern enough.

     I cast off Wednesday afternoon and grabbed the next Jen Lucas design in my queue, Any Way you want it.

      This is a bottom up shawl and started with casting on 400+ stitches. I did it on my first try with just a little tail left. That pretty much made my day. I also put stitch markers every 100 stitches to help me keep track.

     And my Fogliame cardigan looks like a weird Yoda. I finished the yoke, separated the sleeves from the body (where the blue yarn is) and picked up A LOT of stitches for the ribbing. Have about an inch of ribbing to do before I move onto the lace at the bottom.

The back.

     And finally, to the Etsy sale. I have loved Robayre for years. I often look at her store and think about what I want to buy. This month she is celebrating her shop's 10th anniversary with a 10% off sale. I finally bought something and loved all the little extras that came with it. I bought the leaf necklace but she included a couple buttons and the grass paper and envelope, too.  Go look at her shop and use the code ROBAYRE10YEARS for 10% off. Some of my favorites are this stationary set, this painting and this necklace.

     I've worn the necklace almost everyday since it arrived two weeks ago. (I'm also wearing my new Ani DiFranco t-shirt in the picture above too.) You can find Robin, of Robayre, at her blog, and on instagram. (Robin didn't ask me to write anything about her shop, or compensate me in any way. I just love her stuff and want to support her).

     And her little buttons have been added to my collection. I think I need to find a way to display them. Top buttons are from NaNoWriMo, Fresh Stitches and Mochimochi Land.