Beginner Sampler Shawl is complete!

I finally buckled down and was determined to finish that border last night. I did finish it and blocked it last night. The border was torture. Okay, it was just boring. After doing one of the long straight sides, I got tired of turning the work back and forth. I started knitting backwards and everything went much faster as a result. This shawl is HUGE. Because of it's pre-blocking size, I didn't block it as aggressively as I usually do. I'm not very happy with how it looks. I think that I will block it bigger when I feel up to all that pinning again.

Stats--
Yarn: Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in Iris (approx 4.66 skeins used)
Needles: Knitpicks Classic Circulars-size 3 for the body and 2 for the border
Unblocked size: 85" x 29"
Blocked size: 92" x 35"
Started: November 14, 2006
Completed: February 8, 2007

Here it is blocking. I blocked in on a really old green and white gingham sheet from the 70's. It helped me evenly space out the points of the borders. I must mention that this shawl called for approximately 1650 yds of "superfine weight" yarn. Alpaca Cloud is pretty fine for a laceweight. I ended up using 4 skeins of alpaca cloud for the main body of this shawl. Each skein is roughly 440 yards. I ended up using around 2/3 of a fifth skein of yarn to do the border. Even though dyelots were different, you can't really tell the difference. Thank goodness.

Here is one end section and the center section of the shawl in the snow. You can see how often the stitch pattern changes. Often enough to keep it interesting, but not too often to drive you crazy. My favorite parts are the knitted lace sections. I like how open those sections are. The coloring of the yarn is most accurate in these outdoor pictures. The yarn was great to use and very soft. I have made a few shawls out of laceweight alpaca. I think the next shawl will be a different fiber.