A few catch-up knits. And a skirt.

Here’s my finished Kiri shawl (link opens pdf). I used 2.5 balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze and 4.5mm needles.

It’s humongous but the details are pretty.

I could have gone for one extra repeat at the end but I didn’t want to risk running out of wool and have to rip it all out. The pattern is wonderfully easy to remember, so the project soon took on an interesting-but-not-too-hard aspect that I’m sure helped its speedy completion. It’s getting a lot of wear these days, thanks to the ten degree drop we’ve had this week. Brrr!

Another shawl I completed ages ago but never posted was my wedding shawl. Ravelry tells me (as I have no recollection of this at all) that I started it on July 29th and finished it on August 14th.

I used Malabrigo Lace, 3.75mm needles and this simple pattern from Garnstudio. I left out the feather and fan pattern at the end, and so ended up with a simple semi-circular garter stitch shawl. In hindsight, it was the best choice. Not only did I not have the brain power to knit anything more complicated than that, but my dress was quite textured and the garter stitch was well-balanced with it.

The dressmaker used a beautiful paisley lace for the underskirt of the dress. She cut out some extra paisleys – she was going to applique them onto the skirt but didn’t have time. She gave them to me and I appliqued them onto the shawl instead. I think it worked quite well.

It was actually very easy to do. Here is a good picture of the dress and here is a picture of the shawl from behind. See all that pleating on the bodice of the dress? The dressmaker did it all by hand. She is quite the artist, it was an amazing experience to have her make my dress.

Speaking of sewing, I have been working steadily on a black cord skirt. I’m nearly finished. I have yet to put in the yoke facings and do the hem. Here’s the front.

And here’s the back.

I am fairly proud of how my zip turned out. I think I get it now. Noone really explained to me that the very centre of the zip – where the coils meet – needs to be exactly where the seamline would be. I thought about it for a while. I sewed the zip in by hand, re-measured my seam-allowance and adjusted slightly, and then just sewed it in.