FO: Damask Shawl

A beeyooteeful lace shawl to dress up my summer, and to wear until it falls apart for the next 10 autumns. Behold, the Damask.

I love it. I've been wanting to make a more complicated lace bit for a while, but I get stuck on how much time they take. They don't really, it's usually the chart-reading that consumes time for me as I have to constantly be referring back to it and scribbling out line by line as I go. I made a little bargain with myself: There is 158 rows in this patter. If I forced myself to do two rows a day, I will be done in 11 weeks or so. That sounds do-able.

And like magic, three weeks later I was done! Poof! The pattern was so lovely to make and well written and well charted, I just couldn't stop. I'm positively thrilled.

I guess the easy deadline motivated me to finish early. I wore it all summer and I love it. The pattern starts off on the bottom edge with a shitload of stitches, so each row gets progressively smaller, which helped with the optimistic finish. It has the most astoundingly intricate looking lace pattern that will cause you to spend much time admiring your own handiwork throughout.

The yarn is a skein of Sundara Merino/Silk fingering in "Porcini". In France, it's a "cèpes"! But still. Lovely color, and this yarn is perfect for lace and something you would want wrapped around your neck.