Aqua Butterflies

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).

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Okay guys, this is too far away to see detail…

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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I take all my photos with a camera and tripod, and this is one shoot where I should’ve asked a passerby to stand in for focusing… Lessons hopefully learned!

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!