WIP Wednesday - Butterfly Shawl DONE!

I didn't post last week as I didn't have many projects that had seen much progress (plus I forgot to take photos... and really, what's the use of a WIP post without photos?!), which means that this week I have a LOT of progress to show!

I finished two pairs of socks last week! Both my vanilla socks out of sparkly New Years Eve yarn and the test-knit socks are DONE :)

The latter pair were a bit of a hassle to knit, as I discovered shortly into the first one that I'm really not a fan of stranded knitting in socks. I did enjoy seeing the pattern emerge though, and like the finished object, so I think at the end of the day it was worth it, and might make others, but I'm going to be very picky with which ones I choose. I think it was mostly the long floats that messed me up. But now they're done, and fit well, so that's the important thing.

I've also - ta da da DAAAAAA - finished the Butterfly Shawl! This weekend I realized I really only had very little left, so I put on one of my favourite series, and just went nuts... and Monday evening, I finished!!!
The contrast in the gradient yarn isn't as obvious as I'd hoped, so you have to view it in the right light for it to be noticeable, but I still absolutely LOVE it!!! And already have another 3 planned :-P So thank you Mum and Dad for that Christmas present! :-) It's a lot easier than it looks, but the rows got LONG near the end! For the last section, each straight row took 15 minutes to knit!
It's currently blocking, so I decided to take an 'up close and personal' photo to show off the colour changes.

I'm still knitting on the "Change of Heart" cowl. It's coming along nicely, but is unfortunately slightly boring to knit. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it may be because the lace repeat is too long to learn off by heart, but short enough that each repeat doesn't show any significant progress, so it's neither mindless knitting (like vanilla socks), nor a project where each repeat comes with a sense of accomplishment... if that makes sense? The yarn is delicious though (a merino, alpaca, cashmere blend), so I'll keep on keeping on. Actually, with a bit of effort I might be able to learn the pattern off by heart - it's only a 14-row repeat - so perhaps I should just work on that to make it easier travel knitting.

Finally, my sister asked me to knit a balcava for my youngest niece, so of course I got right on that :) It's a really quick knit - mostly garter - so most of it goes WHOOSH! Should finish this before too long... possibly even today!