Kind of a Drag

I was hoping to have finished the Pi Shawl by now.  I kept thinking, though, that it didn't quite speak to me.   I guess that in the laceweight wool of Elizabeth's original, the "bumps" made by the K2tog, yo flatten out considerably with blocking, or that they just didn't get on Elizabeth's nerves as much as they did on mine.  The Koigu is much stiffer than laceweight, has more body, so that the bumps are quite pronounced..  And even though I like the effect of the concentric circles, I missed the pi-ness (pi-ety?) of the ever-doubling radius, which to me seems a lot of the point of the thing.  I also had so wanted to use my rosewood circular needles that even though the gauge was pleasant (they are 3.25mm), I was already on the sixth ball before I'd gotten to the "last" increase, and was starting to worry about running out of wool.

This is the first version on one of its few "travels" -- to the park --

Here, by the way, is one of the posies that Laura and her enterprising friend made from dandelions and scraps of popped balloons, that day at the park.  Laura's friend is the daughter of a businesswoman, and I had to smile to myself when she went up to someone else's mom and said, "Do you want to buy this? it's a quarter."  The other mom was so startled at this enterprise in a six-year-old that she handed her twenty-five cents without a word.

And the second version of the Pi Shawl, which I started the other day --

This is on US5 and US6 needles -- my largest dpns and my handiest circs.  Much bigger gauge, of course, and so it's going fairly quickly, although I'm sure that it won't be finished by the end of the month!

The color in the bottom photo is more accurate, as the camera tends to pull the reds out of purple in natural light, although the inside light, even if it leaves more of the purple, rather flattens things out here.  It looks a bit drab in the new photo, whereas in reality it is quite vivid, for purple and grey.  Almost intense, and luminous, yet in a very subtle way.

Comments

[Erin]

I am always amazed by circular shawls, but I don't know how to wear them. They just don't seem like something that would go with the sweats I'll be wearing around the dorms in a few weeks. Gorgeous, though. And Koigu-I always think of that for socks. I'd love to make something lace out of Koigu now. But all of the Koigu I have is in pairs. Looks like I'll be making another trip to the shop!

[Marie]

I think they both look quite lovely. I really like the "texture" created by the shifting shades of color and the yo's.