Knit. . . secret project revealed: Golden Bay Dreaming shawl

Yay! I just got a text from the birthday girl to say she has opened her parcel and loves her Golden Bay Dreaming shawl, so I can finally share the details! It's been soooo hard keeping this a secret all year long! The following post is "one I prepared earlier."

I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking with  this one!  But suffice it to say that this shawl has been an epic work of love and dedication! I knitted it for a very dear friend (Katrina) whom I have known since we were gawky and uncool teenagers at school together, but we now live on opposite sides of the planet. Actually, to be honest, she stayed on the same side of the planet, it was me who packed my bags and set off for New Zealand!

As Katrina is a super keen knitter (just like me!) I decided a knitted project of epic proportions was in order. The shawl is knitted from 1 ply cobweb yarn, 80% Peruvian baby alpaca and 20% silk, sold by a NEw Zealand company. The pattern is Vernal Equinox Shawl by Lankakomero. I chose this shawl pattern because Katrina's birthday falls upon the Vernal Equinox - 21st March. This year isn't just any birthday for her either, it's one of those ones with a great big zero at the end, so I felt like something extra special was called for. I cast on at 12.01 am on 1st January 2011 as this was my first project in the  12in2011 challenge on ravelry. I finished knitting the shawl on 31st January and then washed and blocked it over the next few days. I had to buy several extra packets of pins to block it with as the edging was so intricate! Katrina knew I was knitting her something, but didn't know what, so I gave it the name "Golden Bay Dreaming" as a codename - so named because I cast on while we were on holiday in beautiful Golden Bay and the yarn was a sandy colour. I also knitted the first 60 or so rows during the wonderful summer holiday Wifie, Sonny Jim and I spent in Golden Bay during late December/early January. Anyway, enough talking - here are the photos!!

Unblocked close up

In the early stages

During blocking

During blocking

Blocking the edging was very fiddly

I used some tie wire threaded through the top of the shawl to straighten out the top edge

Me modelling the shawl before I posted it