hooked on lace

I'd never been that interested in knitting lace shawls until I saw this one (check out the picture at the bottom of the post). And, then, I pretty much had to have that shawl. I've grown quite fond of constantly wearing a huge scarf and I thought that I'd

like it even more if I made that huge scarf myself. And what is a shawl but a huge scarf? But I'm not crazy. I knew there was no way that I would finish that shawl and still graduate from law school. And, in my current state of sleep deprivation, anything that required me to look at a knitting chart regularly was just going to be painful rather than enjoyable. But then the same designer published this pattern, which looked to be easy to remember and soothing to knit. And then I fell hard in love with this yarn (top picture), which was all sold out, but I found a raveler who had bought it and wanted to resell it (crazy, as far as I'm concerned, but I wasn't going to question it) and I wanted that yarn enough to sign up for a paypal account and contract with someone who is clearly very fond of cats.

Preview

Beyond the compulsion to knit it, I don't really have much more to say about this project. The pattern was easy to remember and soothing to knit. I learned that I enjoy knitting lace shawls, to the point where I've committed to knit two wedding shawls this summer. I really adored the yarn and am so glad that I have quite a bit leftover to do something else with. (Even though it's really hard to capture the actual color of this yarn in photos; it's much more blue than it appears in these pictures.) The end product is so soft and shiny that I will feel guilty knitting those wedding shawls in any other yarn. I've added blocking wires to my graduation wish-list, since I couldn't block a straight lace edge with just pins to save my life. I will definitely reblock this once I do have blocking wires, but, for now, I don't mind the scalloped edge so much. (For those of you who don't want to follow all the links, this is the Gale Stole pattern by Anne Hanson, knit in The Plucky Knitter's Merino Silk Lace in the Bingley Wallpaper colorway.)

There are lots of different ways to wear this, depending on how elegant I'm feeling. Can you all guess which way I'm more likely to wear it?