Three Shawls and Three Pairs of Socks

I was so busy in the last couple of months that I didn't have time to post my finished projects. So this is a catchup post containing 3 shawls and 3 pairs of socks.

The first shawl I named Sunset, because that is what its colors and shape remind me of. The yarn used for this project is Knit Picks Stroll Gradient, a fingering 75% superwash merino wool and 25% nylon blend, in the shade of Dragon Breath, and the pattern is Scheherazade by DROPS design. It was an easy and almost mindless knitting project. Although I ran out of yarn early and ended the shawl on row 8 (instead of 2) of the pattern, I realized that I liked it more this way, because it created a neater edge. Furthermore, I used Icelandic bind off for the first time and it is now my favorite method for binding off shawls. It is very stretchy and beautiful. Usually, binding off is my least enjoyable part of a project, because it is cumbersome to find that perfect edge that is stretchy and yet doesn't flare. However, with the Icelandic bind off I didn't have this issue.

The next shawl I also knitted with Knit Picks Stroll Gradient, but in the shade of Pet Rock. It was one of those impulse projects that I began knitting without deciding what was coming next. I had the yarn and the knitting needles in my car, so I just started knitting a shawl, adding alternating sections of garter stitch and yarn over rows with a zigzag edge. To make my pattern simpler, I decided to do 5 garter stitch ridges, 5 yarn over rows, and 5 stitches bound off for the zigzag edge. It was a perfect car knitting project that turned out quite nice.

The third shawl was inspired by a photograph of Malabrigo's Temperance Shawl that showed up on my Facebook feed; however, I didn't use the pattern to make mine. I simply borrowed some of its elements visible on the photo. The yarn for this project is Yarn Bee Authentic Hand-Dyed Tonal, which is 100% superwash merino wool. It is an inexpensive fingering yarn that is soft and very nice to work with. I think the two shades, Iron Soot and Natural Slate, worked very well together in this pattern and I really enjoyed figuring out how to alternate them.

The following socks were knitted using my favorite top-down "vanilla" sock pattern and Patons Kroy Socks yarn. It is a sturdy but soft sock yarn, containing 75% wool and 25% nylon. It is a little thicker than most sock yarn, which makes the socks feel even more cushiony. My husband recently told me that socks knitted with Patons Kroy are his most comfortable socks. They seem to wear well too. The shades I used for these are Eclipse Stripes with Gentry Grey for the heels and the toes, Tourmaline Stripes with Gentry Grey, and Blue Stripes Ragg paired with DROPS Fabel Deep Ocean. By the way, I do have sock blockers but keep forgetting to use them before photographing my socks.