FO: Ishbel I and II

I have two wonderful sisters who celebrated birthdays last week, and I decided to make them each an Ishbel shawlette for wearing in the warm California evenings this summer and fall. Hopefully they will like them enough to carry them over into their winter wardrobes, too!
Here are some blocking closeups. I'll be sure to add real live photos of them wearing the shawlettes when they send me some pictures (hint, hint...).

Note to self - don't block two shawls at a time ever again. I ran out of the good pins and had to resort to pinning with regular handsewing needles. It's a good thing that I have about 100 of them in my various sewing kits, but they are not friendly on the thumbs.  Perhaps I should have worn a thimble for punching them through the towel? 

Here is proof that Gus is an incredibly well-behaved feline specimen. Not only does he not grab at, eat, chase, or otherwise mess with my yarn, he also refrains from lying on top of knits that are blocking. You can tell he is interested, but he keeps his distance. I've been thinking a lot lately about adding a new cat to the household, and I cross my fingers that whoever I get is similarly yarn-friendly :)

The specs are as follows:
Pattern - Ysolda Teague's Ishbel (Rav link)
Yarn - Knit Picks Shadow Tonal in Golden Glow (yellow) and Queen Anne's Lace (pink), about 396 yards of each (I have 40 yards or so left over from each skein for something stripey and wonderful).
Needles - US 6 straights. This involved a bit of scrunching toward the end of each project, but I can live with that.
Mods - none. I knit the larger stockinette portion and the small lace repeat in an attempt to get slightly larger shawls and use up my yarn.
Verdict - Knitting these up was really fun. The stockinette portion went really quickly, and the lace charts were very clear. I am pleased with them, but we'll have to see what J and L think! I don't think I'll be knitting a third one immediately, but if I chose to make one for myself I'd do a larger size in a heavier yarn. This seems a little dainty to handle Chicago winters.

On a different note, it was brought to my attention yesterday that recent changes to my blog format moved the "comment" section around and made it difficult to find. In case this confused you, too, and you want to leave a comment (and I hope you do!), you can now find the little link thingie at the top of every post, right underneath the title. Hope that helps.

Happy knitting :)