So this story begins in my favorite “second hand” store, the Scrap Exchange in Durham NC. (Second hand is in quotes because most of the materials are new, just pre-owned).
I introduced my parents to the space a couple visits back, and now it’s always on the agenda when they come down (Hi Mom and Dad!), and they visited back in January. So naturally we visited the store.
- Too close, you can see the focus issue…
Checking out the yarn bins, I hit gold in the greens bin with this Malabrigo sock yarn for $5. It had never been caked, and it still had the original $18 price tag. I snapped it up, and I got super excited.
- I guess it’ll do. Dear Reader, please do not try to zoom in!
I should mention that the ‘rents were visiting to help me move. So when I was unpacking I obviously wasn’t originally interested in finding my swift and winder, but still somehow I managed to cake it up within the first two weeks or so of moving, and then looked for a shawl pattern to match it with.
On Ravelry I found the beautiful Dancing Butterflies shawl, by Carfield Ma, and it felt like a match.The pattern is well written, and working it up was great! I did have to alter it near the border since I only had the one skein available. I played multiple games of yarn chicken before finally finishing it maybe 10 rows before expected.
Then came blocking, where I was able to block it to a rather huge size, but it did show me that I was not loose enough binding off, so I got curly edges. Not that it matters, because I now have Butterfly Wings!
I love this shawl, but I’ve found myself only reaching for it when I’m wearing blue or green. Good thing that makes up so much of my wardrobe!