Finished: Swallowtail Shawl

I'm so impressed by myself - I've finished another item. :D (Humility is simply something for weaklings :D Just kidding! :D ). Truth to be told, I'm usually working on several parallel projects and now it happens that I have finished them all around the same time.

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark, in Interweave Knit Fall 2006
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace, 100% baby alpaca; 437 yd [ 400 m]/50 g
Color: #7120 sea mist
Price: $5.95, bought at theknitter.com
Needles: 3.5 mm
Gauge: Bah, for weaklings :D
Dimensions: 118 cm wide and 59 from the tip to the center of the bottom. I just blocked, I have no clue to what size I should have blocked it, but it looked ok as it was.
Modifications: I made a double yarn over after I made the nups, because knitting five stitches together turned out to be quite tricky for a tight knitter, which I am I think. With the double yarn over I could just slip one and loosen the stitches that were supposed to be knit together. I also changed the cast off method a bit. I used the same one as I did for the Flower Basket Shawl, which I did actually wrong by mistake. For the Japanese Feather Scarf I cast off using a method describe in an Interweave article by Eunny Jang (I think it was the Fall issue): purl two stitches, put them back on the left needle, purl them together, purl, put the two stitches back on the left needle, etc. The cast off method for the two shawls was similar: knit two, put them back on the left needle, knit them together through the back loops, knit one, put the two stitches back on the left needle, etc. What I did, was knit two, put them back on the left needle and then purl these two through the back loops, knit one, put back on the left needle, etc. I only realized it now that my cast off was different. I think it looks ok though, not too back actually. As it's still an elastic cast off I might use it again.





I think the colors are not well represented in pictures above. It's a bit more greenish, like in this picture. If I use the flash my pictures are on focus, but the colors look different. If I don't use a flash the colors look more like in real life, but the pictures are blurry.