Here's Kiri--Again

I love the Kiri Shawl. It's an awesome pattern. It's lacy without being too lacy. It's easy enough to knit without being too complicated or too boring. Well that is unless you did what I did and add extra repeats to make a bigger shawl so that by the time you get there you are so sick of knitting little leaves that you are ready to scream. But then again that screaming may have been influenced by the fact that it was Christmas and I was trying to finish and I was hopelessly too far behind to get all my knitted presents finished in time for Santa to put them under the tree. But then again it didn't really matter because the presents were for my parents who knew what I was up to and didn't care if they were done by Dec. 25th. God Bless Mom & Dad!

So here's my second Kiri shawl which finally got it's lovely bubble bath and trip to the blocking bed. I had to wait until the last of the relatives departed so I could have the bed to use for blocking. I suspected the shawl would be too big to fit on the bed, which it was, but I fudged it anyway 'cause I wasn't up to crawling around on the floor waving T-pins and metal rods. Oh, the metal rods---this was my 1st time using blocking "wires" to block the straight edge of the shawl. These were aluminum welding rods I found at the little Ace Hardware Store in Dixie Lee Junction. Things sure have changed at Dixie Lee Junction from my high school days when DLJ was known only for the fireworks shop which was next door to the dilapidated drive-in movie theater which showed only XXX movies and was a frequent topic of discussion among the jocks and rednecks at good old Farragut High School. But I digress... The wires do make a terrific straight edge to the shawl but threading them is a little tricky, esp. since I had to use 5 of them to cover the wingspan of the shawl. But they do a much better job than running a long length of fishing line to block the top, so that's that. Oh, and the shawl is a heathered purple and not the blackish brown color that it looks like in the pictures. I have a crummy digital camera but the price was right (yup, free).

The final statistics:
1. Pattern: Kiri Shawl from All Tangled Up
2. Yarn: KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud, color-iris, 4 skeins knit double-stranded (used ~1550 yds.)
3. Needles: Addi-Turbos US 5 (3.75mm), 32" circulars
4. Finished dimensions: 40x80" (15 repeats, 16 leaf motifs along center line)