Finally! My Lace Shawl!

Hello!
I've really been looking forward to being able to write this post. I have been working on this lace shawl on and off, between Christmas gifts and swaps, while watching football and Little House on the Prairie, and during visits with family and friends. To make a long story short, this shawl has taken me FOREVER! But! The time put into it was totally worth it!

Knitpicks.com had a yarn sale a few months ago, and when they did I bought three skeins of lace weight yarn, I got an amazing deal! Praise the Lord!

As you can see, it's alpaca and silk! I love touching this yarn, it's SO soft!

The color I got is BEAUTIFUL! The color is called "Bayou", I love all the different shades of green and brown there are, then the little bit of blue. I love it so much! I was really pleased when my yarn came in the mail. There is something about ordering yarn and having it come directly to your house, through the mail, that is so much fun!

I had started this shawl on Thanksgiving Eve day, then I had to put it away and make Christmas things, plus some things to put on etsy, so I didn't work on it a ton. After I finished my Christmas gifts I was able to work on it much more often, it took me such a long time to finally finish it because of how fine the yarn is. The pattern I used is out of  "Cute and Easy Crochet" by Nicki Trench, it's called "Summer Evening Shawl". I personally would wear this any time of the year!

I didn't make my shawl quite as long as the pattern said to, but if I had it probably would have been way to long for me! The way the yarn looked before I crocheted with it, then as I started to work with it, I think the colors got even more beautiful!

This isn't the greatest picture of it, but I wanted at least one picture where you can see the entire shawl.

One thing I really love about this shawl is that I can also wear it as a scarf!

Another thing I love about this shawl, other than the amazing yarn, is the edging of picots. As long as the edging took, it added a lot to the shawl and I really love it!

This is a really close-up picture of the edging...

Then taking a step back, it looks something like this. =)

As much fun as I had working on this, I'm really happy I'm done and can wear it now! =) I have been waiting so long to finally be able to write a post about this lace shawl and am SO excited that I was able to today! =)

Have a great day!

Swaps and Scarves

Hello!

A while back I mentioned that I was doing a swap on ravelry! It was a lot of fun, and I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures.

One of the things I sent was a crochet hook case, it was really easy to make and I really liked it a lot!

I sent some other things as well, but this was by far my favorite! I want to make one for myself at some point.

I also made some dishcloths, place markers, snowflake ornaments, and I sent some yarn.

I really enjoyed doing the swap, here are some pictures of what was sent to me.

I couldn't believe how many wonderful things were in this package! There was a TON of yarn, some of it was cotton, some wool and even alpaca, all of which I LOVE! =D

There were so many goodies, it made me very happy! I love everything. =)

It is going to be a while before I actually finish using all of this yarn, I made myself a cowl out of a skein of the alpaca yarn. It is so soft and warm, I love it! I made it special for our Christmas Eve church service.

Another thing I made special for Christmas Eve was a hairpin. It has sparkles in it, so I thought it looked festive. =)

Swap 2

Right before Christmas, my grandma, mom, sisters and I decided we should do a swap together and trade around New Years. I drew my grandma's name and she drew mine, it was funny that we got each other! =) I made her a teal crochet hook case, which I forgot to take a picture of for my blog, but you can kind of picture it yourself, it's the same case as the one I showed you earlier on in this post. Grandma made me a BEAUTIFUL doily, it's green and white. The white has sparkles in it that look like snow, the picture I took doesn't do it justice, it's hard to get good pictures of doilies sometimes.

She also got me a hanging angel, which looks really nice on the doily!

Lastly, I made this scarf for friend. I got the pattern out of a One Skein Wonder book that I got for Christmas...the book is amazing!

I would have liked to get a better picture of it by taking it outside. However, the day that I took the picture, our wind chill temperature was minus 7, so I stayed inside that afternoon! =) My sister and I went for a walk that morning though, we decided we wouldn't do that again when it's that cold and windy, it was still fun though! =)

Well, that's all for now! Have a wonderful day!