Tag-Team Shawls

I finally, finally finished the Theatrical Lace shawl Friday evening (no pictures yet, because I'm still in the dark ages and have to get them developed). I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. One day I might get over the "Gosh, it looks like the picture!" phase.

Of course, finishing it left me at something of a loose end, since it was the next-to-last unfinished project lying around and I have no intention of tackling the last one yet. I dithered for a couple of days and knitted on some socks, then decided that it was time to tackle a very, very old unstarted project.

It's from the same book that the Theatrical Lace pattern came from (Best of Knitter's Shawls and Scarves), and in fact is from the same designer, Eugen Buegler. It's called Lace Dream, and is basically a shawl made using the lovely Peacock Plumes/Ostrich Feathers lace pattern. I've wanted to make it ever since I got the book, and even bought three skeins of Mountain Colors mohair years ago for it. The Mountain Colors mohair is heavier than the called-for Cascade Kid, but I wanted very badly to use the Mountain Twilight colorway for a shawl.

I swatched today, and was very, very happy with the results. The yarn is so gorgeous that it's okay that it's too dark to really emphasize the lace pattern, and in fact the lace made the colors swirl in really unexpected and beautiful ways. I'll have to do it again in another yarn if I want to appreciate the full beauty of the Peacock Plumes, but that's not really a hardship.

I just hope I bought enough yarn five years ago...