Two Tri-Loom Shawls

(Note: I added my mom's obituary to the "My Mom" post below. It took me awhile to write it...)

I finally finished two shawls I've been working on for ages. Both were made on small continuous weave looms.

The first is in Noro Silk Garden . I used 3 different Hazel Rose looms: 12" square and tri, and 7" tri. (Remember HR tri-looms are sized according to the sides rather than hypotenuse, so they can be matched up with the other shapes.)

The final shawl is very different than the one I started out to make, which was going to be a large triangle composed of squares and triangles. Instead, because of issues with the neck and drape, I wound up working in an improvisational way and ended up with this shape:


which sits very nicely on the shoulders and has an almost jacket-like appearance.When I first began putting the pieces together, my intention was to set the squares on point, with three forming the base of the triangle and then filling in with a row of triangles across the top. Somehow I decided that I liked the look of the central part you see below (2 tri's at the bottom, two squares at the top),
but discovered that the squares did not sit right at the neck and puckered and looked awful. This resulted in my making 7" tri's and gathering the squares just a bit to fit along the edges of those tri's, and then doing an interesting join between 2 12" triangles and one of the 7" triangles:


I edged each piece with a round of single crochet and joined with mattress stitch through the back loop of each sc. The whole shawl was edged with a round of single crochet and a round of slip stitch. I did not attempt to match edging colors, just used the Silk Garden color flow as it came.

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And here is the Forest Floor Shawl, which was started in the fall of 2006, finally finished. It languished in all-but-a-few-loose-ends state for months. I don't think I'll ever understand why so many of my UFOs wind up being virtually finished but for a wee bit of work left.
Quoting from my earlier entry while this was in progresss:

"It's made of small woven triangles in Noro Blossom, joined in a freeform fashion, with areas of
freeform crochet in the same Blossom. I'm also using some Noro Silk Mountain, for the edging and here and there in the body.

My guiding vision is of a shawl sort of magically whirled together out of all the leaves and twigs and seed pods and bits of bark on a forest floor."

I talked my yarn shop friend Jennifer into modeling for me. As you can see, the shawl either requires or inspires a bit of dramatic flair on the part of the wearer.

I swear....I shall wear this in public as soon as the weather becomes shawlish rather than longjohnish. (and a gentle pooh-pooh to the lady who said, 'but...but, there are HOLES in it!')