NOTHING beats a nice piece of lace on a beautiful child. She was unaware I was making a shawl for her, and her mom kept very quiet about the surprise! As you can see from the pictures, the shawl helps to make a gorgeous child, a beautiful dress, and a handsome prom date…all that much better.

4/7--The plan was to give the Feather and Fan shawl to a friend, for her prom on 4/12.

After dying the shawl to match the underlining of the recipient’s dress, I started my blocking process on 4/7.

The shawl ripped in three places. Yeah, I know-- too much of whatever I’ve been doing. Let’s just call it a learning experience and move on.

Sure, I could fix the rips. But, I think you would still be able to tell there was work done on the shawl after it was finished, to fix a mistake. I certainly didn’t want that, not for a gift.

I dug out a hank of Fino I dyed a light, mottled pink-- thank goodness it will match her black and pink dress. I started the furious knitting on the Kiri shawl (which will probably be an easier wear, anyways) on 4/7.

As long as I get the edging finished before Friday afternoon, I’ll be able to block it. Thank goodness alpaca has that nice, hollow core, which will dry quickly.

Especially with the force of three fans on it.

4/11- I finished the shawl, and it’s currently blocking. It’s nice to know I can knit so fast, I can pull a complete shawl out of nowhere within four days, knitting only in the evening. I used a timer to calculate my knitting time-- 6 hours over four nights= 24 hours total knitting time. (I did watch a fair amount of tv as well, so it wasn’t all completely dedicated to the knitting process.)

Did I enjoy knitting this shawl? Not really. I love to make Kiri shawls…but since there was a time limit on this shawl, it wasn’t pleasurable knitting.

What made it a worthwhile knit-- is knowing how happy and beautiful the wearer will be in it!