Shawl & Brooch

This project has given me a lot of personal satisfaction.  It is officially my first entry for Stashbusting September and there's a reason for it. 

Around this time every year, when the weather finally starts to cool down, I get the urge to knit.  Can't explain it, really.  I find that there is definitely a cyclical pattern to my craft interests, based partially on the seasons.  In the fall I get the urge to pick up knitting needles, throughout the winter and spring all I want to do is quilt, and usually in summer I start making jewelry.  This year I seemed to really focus on the quilting because I had the time, but typically that's not the case.

At any rate, every fall I run out and buy a bunch of skeins of yarn for some intended project.  Sometimes I finish them.  Usually I do not.  It's a busy time of year and usually the knitting gets set aside so I can finish Christmas projects and then I move on to something else when the holidays are over.  And the yarn sits in my yarn basket or stash bin somewhere and exudes a sense of guilt in my general direction. 

As far as I can tell, this particular yarn has been part of my stash for four (that's 4) years now.  Embarassing.

I started with two skeins of Lion Brand Homespun in Harvest and decided to keep the construction as simple as possible.  I cast on 50 stitches with the biggest needles I had (size 15) and basically kept knitting until both skeins were gone.  I started it sometime on Friday and finished both the shawl and brooch last night.  I was determined.

On another note, I had the hardest time photographing both the pin and the shawl.  Either I didn't have enough light to show the colors and details or I had too much.  And I think I basically got my brain fried in class today and just couldn't handle trying to edit out pics.  So I just kept the best of several different lighting conditions. 

I even got to make a tiny dent in my beading stash by making a matching brooch to hold the shawl in place.

The red and orange beads are different agates and the greenish ones are some type of turquoise.  The pin and findings are all silver plated.   

It feels so good to have finished a fall knitting project, to bust some stash, and end up with something that perfectly captures the range of fall colors.  Hooray!

In other news, I was featured by Jamie over at C.R.A.F.T. for both my Reusable Sandwich Bags and my Recycled Bird Seed Bag in the last couple weeks.  I just love her blog and especially how she'll collect a bunch of projects related to a similar idea - very handy.  Thanks, Jamie!

And don't forget my Quilt Giveaway is still going on until Sunday, September 12th at 6pm.  I can't wait to find out who will win!!