The Shawl of Doom

So I've been pretty absent for the past week. I meant to do better, but there was this thing. This almost  eight foot by two foot, lacy, blue, thing. Formally, it is known as the Cold Mountain Stole by Kieran Foley. Less formally, it's known as 'thing sitting on my desk that I am glaring at.' It had to be finished and blocked for my wonderful cousin's beautiful wedding yesterday. It was about 20% done on Tuesday. It is literally the only thing I did all week. My child watched too many episodes of Caillou on Netflix, my parents babysat, and the house went uncleaned while the food went unmade. It was an ugly week. But, even if all the odds were against me, I got it finished, and wore it, and it was lovely.

This is, unfortunately, the only picture I have of it, because the way I wore it most of the night combined with the humidity totally killed the blocking. It's kind of a long strip of smushed stitches today. I've pulled it back into shape, I've folded it up, and I'll revisit it later. I think I'll reblock it, focusing on width rather than length. The yarn was Diamond Luxury Collection Pima Lino, of which I used two skeins. It's very soft and was lovely to wear in the warm sunshine.

I made my dress too!

I'm the short blue one in the middle. You probably guessed that. Anyway, the dress is McCalls 6073 and it was a breeze to make and a joy to wear. It's essentially a glorified tank top. Seriously, it's soft and stretchy and flattering and wonderful. It goes up to a womens 24, which translates to about a 20 in retail sizes. I made a slightly modified 24 (bigger hips, smaller bust... lucky me). If you're bigger than I am and have a little sewing experience, you could easily modify the size up. If you're smaller, it goes down to an 8 (also known as a 2).

Rei, of course, was super cute. Her dress came back from Mexico with my parents.

I don't know how she got so adorable, but it does go a long way these days as her behaviour indicates that the terrible two stage is well underway.