FO: Pea Vines

We went apple picking this afternoon and the orchard seemed like a perfect place to snap a few FO pics. (We also came home with enough apples to make 3 pies, but that's another story.)

Pattern: Pea Vines by Anne Hanson

Yarn: Handmaiden casbah (a superwash merino/cashmere/nylon blend - really lovely, by the way)

Needles: size 5 addi lace circulars

Size: mini (I know I blocked this one a bit bigger than the pattern called for but I forgot to actually measure the piece when I took it off the blocking wires this morning - 44-45" for the wingspan sounds accurate)

Mods: just a little one

This was just a fun knit and a great marriage of yarn and pattern. The greens in the yarn worked particularly well with the pea pod and leaf motifs in the bottom portion of the shawl. Plus, there were plenty of nupps (and I'm pretty sure I've talked before about just how much I enjoy making nupps).

To be fair, these nupps aren't quite as fun as those you'll find in a Nancy Bush pattern - my particular favorite. In Nancy Bush's estonian patterns, nupps are worked over two rows. On the first, right-side, row you work some number of [k1, yo], k1 into a single stitch and then proceed down the row. Then, when you reach those extra nupp stitches on your way back across the wrong-side row, you purl all of the nupp stitches together (next to impossible without a very pointy needle, but very fun when you have the proper equipment). Here, Anne has you work the nupps over one row: working [p1, yo] x times and then a final p1 into a single stitch. Then, once you have finished that, you pull all of the extra stitches over that final p1 as if to bind off, decreasing back down to your original stitch. This produces a bubble-shaped nupp, which I will admit looks more like a pea in a pod than the estonian version, but I found it a bit trickier to maintain tension using this technique (read: not quite as much fun to work).

Of course, that isn't to say that I didn't enjoy knitting this little shawl. Quite the contrary - I had a blast working on it. The pattern was intricate, but not so tricky that I couldn't notice mistakes as I made them (or at least the next row up). Once the pattern motifs began to emerge, I just couldn't put this one down.

It's a relatively quick knit. This one took me two weeks, knitting on it only in the evenings after work and on weekends. I have a feeling that I'll be knitting this pattern again, too. It would make a great gift piece.

But not this one. This one's mine.