FO Friday

Two projects to share with you guys today!

First up is a Pookie!

Isn't it super super cute! *faints a little*
I seriously love him so much I don't want to give him away. I showed him to my older brother and HE didn't want to give it back to me! My sister, too, is under the pookie's magic spell.
The pattern was very easy, and I love that just by changing the ears you can get a different animal. The hood was charming to knit, and added the perfect touch. I used scrap yarn, mostly Cascade 220, to create this little guy. I love love love love love this pookie! He should have some more friends soon. I also really love that Barbara Prime, the designer, has such a generous policy regarding sharing and selling the toys/patterns.

OK project number 2.

I had it in my mind to make a striped shawl, and I was thinking about all the extra kidsilk in my stash and how I'd love to use some of it up. I decided to do a kidsilk ruffle (I didn't have enough to make a whole shawl, even with stripes) and had this great idea in my head.

Then, after knitting happily for a few days, I saw an advertisement banner on ravelry for a shawl exactly like I was making! So, I call this shawl the Agave Nectar shawl, because it is a sort of healthy imitation of Honey's Ruffles. I think I must have seen the advertisement before and the idea slipped into my subconscious. At any rate I have a new shawl!

Yarn:
Stripes are Queensland Collection Bamboo Cotton I used about 1.4 skeins of each color.  This yarn was very drapey and has a nice feel- it's sort of silky and smooth- but since it's so slippery the ends I weaved in keep threatening to peek through on the right side.
The ruffle is Rowan Kidsilk Haze in light pink held together with Lana Gatto Silk Mohair in light blue. Since I was using leftovers of the kidsilk haze, I ran out of the pink at the end of the second to last row and used just blue doubled from there out. You can tell if you look closely:

Holding the yarn together made the ruffle kind of stiffer than I'd like, but I tried with one strand first and it just didn't look right. I think I should have gone up a needle size, and that would have given it some nice drape. I realized this after a few rows, but I didn't really feel like frogging mohair...

Needles:
Size US 6 (4mm)

I think at the end, after doubling the stitch count to make the ruffle, I had about 516 stitches. I bound off using the decrease bind off. I did the purl version, on the knit side. I did about 4 rows of garter stitch before I bound off but I wish I had done fewer.

I'm not sure where exactly I will ever wear this shawl, or if the color looks good on me or anything. I think this is going to be gifted...But I'm not sure who else in my family would wear a shawl like this either...
Or maybe I'll just keep it. So I can get high on Kidsilk Haze fumes.

Check out more FO's with Tamis Amis ^_^