cashmere rocks

So I decided not to do the Bird's Nest Shawl after all. I had ordered 5 hanks of Makalu 100% DK Cashmere in polamino, knowing I wouldn't have quite enough yardage (because of the weight of the yarn, I was planning on knitting it single strand, instead of double as the pattern states). But then the 5th hank was back ordered, so, forgetting that I was already shorting myself, I thought I'd make do with just the 4 hanks, and I canceled the 5th. Then when I was ready to knit, looked at the pattern, recalculated the yardage, and realized I would be really really short.

I still wanted to knit my mom a shawl for her birthday, though. And I found the perfect one on the first site I looked at. The Interweave Knits summer issue focuses on lace, and the Staff Projects: Sweet Somethings includes a shawlette (yes, it's actually called a 'shawlette'), in a yarn that's almost an exact match for the Makalu DK Cashmere I got. Yippee! Now I actually had twice as much yarn as needed! Since I wanted something slightly bigger than a shawlette, something closer to an actual shawl, I extended the pattern a bit. At row 60, I kept going to add an extra 6 stitches to each side (6 being the number of stitches in the horizontal lace pattern repeat). And in the lower lace border, I did an extra 4 rows (1 repeat of the vertical lace pattern). And ta daa! It's finished. About 2 weeks late, but that's okay.