Eleven Shawls all done

Last week I finished the last of my eleven shawls for the 11 Shawls in 2011 challenge on Ravelry and I still have four more on the needles, two are snoozing and two are knit-alongs so are work in progress...............

I find there is a certain fascination in the making of shawls - there is the challenge to interupt the symbols and to keep the right number of stitches, and I just love the way the patterns reveal themselves from a series of hyroglifics seemingly meaningless into a regular pattern that has a certain rhythm. They come in all shapes and sizes, circles, squares and triangles, big ones, medium and small, then there is the question what constitutes a shawl - is it something that you wear over the shoulders? Some designs are lttle more that neck warmers, I prefer my shawls large and lacey with lots of fancy stitches to keep you on your toes.

I even had a go at designing - it isn't easy - but I did get Anna Dalvi's book Shaping Shawls which explains the ins and outs of shawl design, so perhaps next year for 12 shawls in 2012 I will make some of my own designs................who knows I might get put a pattern on Ravelry one day and have my own KAL (knitalong) - now that is a real challenge