FO: Cleopatra

At long last I have finally finished this lace stole/shawl/scarf thing.

It's the Cleopatra Wrap from the book Sensual Knits.  This thing has been in my WIP basket for so long I think it left a permanent shadow.  I am truly relieved to have finished it, but I am surprised how much I like it now that it's been cast off and blocked.

 I always intended to give this to my Grandma, since she gave me a nice shawl from one of her travels and sighed that she got everyone in our family a shawl except herself.  While I was working on it, I was worried that it wasn't going to turn out well and that the colorway wasn't really my grandma's style.  But in the end I've decided it's right up her alley and I'll be sending it off for Christmas.

This was the first lace project I started, and the lace edges were really fun to knit.  But that center section was interminable.  On the bright side, it made good train knitting, and I noticed how much faster the last ten inches went than the first - I think I've become a noticeably more efficient knitter in the past two years.

The blocking process was a hoot, and my only available blocking surface - really the only surface larger than a laptop in my rented room, my bed - was just barely big enough to fit it.  Whenever I get around to settling down, I will definitely invest in blocking wires, since I anticipate knitting many more lace things in the future. 

I had bought a set of blocking wires pretty cheap (I think it was this set, but I could be wrong) when I started this project a couple years ago, but they couldn't fit in my luggage when I moved so they probably ended up at Goodwill.  I'm not exactly sure what happened to a lot of my stuff. I left an apartment mostly full and two of my girlfriends, who are dear sweet angels, "dealt with it" for me.  I was never a hoarder or anything, but being able to just leave all my stuff behind and not worry about its fate was a milestone in my personal development, I think.

Successfully finishing such a long term project creates the itch to cast on for a bunch of stuff, especially after looking at the new issue of Twist Collective.  But with the holidays coming up fast I need to stick with WIPs and mittens for my family.