Crochet Shawl

The road trip to my family's home in New Mexico is about 500 miles and though I used to be a car reader, I find myself frequently getting carsick on the trip now if I read too long.  So it turns out that crocheting is a great way to fill the long drive.  Having seen a couple of beautiful small shawls/triangular scarves (not sure where the crossover line is), I decided to crochet one.

I dyed some of my fabulous white alpaca yarn (thanks Aunt Susan!) and started to look for a pattern.  I love searching on ravelry, and selected this one for purchase from the interweave store.  I love all the free patterns on ravelry, and many thanks to those who post their work for use by others, but most of the free patterns don't have diagrams.  I have a really hard time crocheting from the written instructions, and do much better from the stitch diagram.  Anyway, I really loved the snowflaky edging on this pattern and figured I'd just make it smaller.  

It called for lace weight yarn, but really I'm terrible about following instructions directly and usually just use whatever yarn I'd planned on and one of my two favorite crochet hooks and hope for the best.  I think my alpaca is a DK or Sport weight, but luckily this pattern had some tips for using a bulkier yarn.  Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn about 6 rows from the end of the beautiful border, so I had to just finish it off with some scallops since there was no way I was going to be able to replicate that dye lot even if I'd wanted to.  I love the way it turned out, and it's fabulously soft and warm and light.

Please pardon the fact that my hair is sticking up weirdly.

In other yarn news- my dear friend Kristin sent me some handknitted fingerless gloves for Christmas- she's such a great knitter and of course I love the pink yarn and the beautiful cabling.  What a great Christmas present!!!

And finally, a bit of snowy goodness-  we got 13-16" (depending on where you measured) at my parents' house, and enjoyed much sledding in their yard with my mom and sister and niece and nephew.  The dogs had a blast....

Even though it isn't an art quilt, I'm linking up with Nina-Marie.  Hopefully soon I'll be back with more on my current art projects!