Another One Finished!

I pulled another project started long ago out of the pile, and finally finished my Boneyard Shawl - or at least, my version of Boneyard.

First of all--and I may have already told y'all this when I cast on over a year ago (according to Ravelry)--Stephen West designed this shawl while he lived in Urbana, Illinois, which, along with Champaign, is the home of my alma mater, the University of Illinois.  The Boneyard is a creek that runs through the north end of campus.  One year, I lived in an apartment that looked over it.  When I was in school, it was for the most part polluted and full of trash, but it was  part of my life.  Luckily, it has since been rehabilitated and is now an important feature of the U of I's Engineering Quad.

Obviously, I had to make this shawl, even thought it is composed of swaths of my nemesis:  stockinette.  Stockinette broken up every 11 rows with a garter ridge. Which is why it took me a year....

Details:
Pattern:  Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West
Yarn:  Malabrigo Sock (2 skeins) in Stonechat, and a tiny bit of my beloved MadTosh Vintage in Cherry for the bind-off.
Needles:  US 4
Mods:  The pattern calls for DK and, if you check my Rav posting for this, you'll see that it took me a while to find the perfect yarn for this.  I had bought two skeins of the Stonechat for something other than socks, and it worked great for this project.  One change that I made at the very beginning was to use yarn overs for the edge increases, while keeping the M1s along the center ridge.  About half way through the 2nd skein, I accidentally knit the garter ridge two rows early, and I decided to make that a feature - I would knit the garter ridge two rows early every time, until I ended up with several rows of straight garter stitch.  However, once I got to the garter section, I got bored, because each row by the was 400+ stitches.  After three rows of garter stitch, I threw in a row of eyelets, then did three more rows of garter.  And because I didn't have enough yarn to bind off, I used some of the MadTosh Vintage in Cherry (previously seen in my Ripley hat and Sidecar mittens) to bind off.  I had actually considered using the Vintage for the eyelet row, but I was afraid the yarn weights were too different.  However, it worked just fine for the bind-off!

I'm really happy with this shawl - it will be my work shawl, replacing a really ugly and ancient black store-bought shawl that has been in my office for at least 15 years!

After I finished this, I worked a bit more on the Hedgerow socks that have been on the needles forever, then cast on for Shiraz.  Appropriately, I'm knitting it in wine-red Cascade 220 Heathers.  (I have a work-related trip later in the month, and I think the Hedgerow socks will be great travel knitting.)  My next sweater was supposed to be Myrtle, which I cast on and ripped out last August, but after reading more about that pattern, I think I need a little more sweater experience before trying it.  Myrtle's lace doesn't frighten me at all, but actually turning the lace into a sweater does! Shiraz is a more straight-forward pattern, so, in addition to being a great sweater that I'm sure I'll wear, it's also good practice.

Not-so-great photo taken with my iphone - the yarn is really a dark red.