Icarus Shawl

So a little over a year ago, I knit this on commission, and it was beautiful.

I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to start knitting something similar for myself. Not this particular shape or pattern, but a pretty white lace mohair shawl.
I had this yarn.

You can't really tell from this photo, but it was a giant cake. It's the biggest single cake I've ever seen, and that's because it was about 1500 yards of mohair. In one cake.
I don't remember the brand of the yarn, I bought it at a neat little shop in East Lansing, MI. The lady there custom dyed things, but I wanted plain white, so she sold it to me off the cone like this. I have to say, I'm a fan of the giant cake. It means no awkward ends to weave in throughout your delicate lace shawl.
It was destined to become the Icarus Shawl (ravelry link). I thought it would look like angel wings. So, it was lovely, and I was really enjoying working on it, up until about 2/3 of the way through the body.

It pretty much looked like this, which was easy enough.
And then the second half of the original shawl story came into play, and I had to knit the second one, because the first one was stolen.
And after two and half white mohair shawls, well, this one was put in time out for a while.
In my post-Christmas UFO busting spree, this one was a good candidate, because I was now in love with the yarn and pattern again. It only took a year. And this is the result.

Pretty good, huh? It's gigantic, but I'm totally fine with that. This is a shawl with some heft to it, not one of those wimpy shawls that's pretty much a yarn necklace. Oh no, this is a shawl built for warmth. Just in time for summer. Oh well, it's out of the way, it's a gorgeous finished object that I'm actually going to keep, and it will be tres chic come fall.

In a crazy-cat-lady-in-training sort of way.
I finished the actual knitting of it some time ago. Okay, possibly a month or two ago. But, it's not finished till it's blocked, especially with lace.
Various closeups:

The peak

The edge
The really hard part was when I got to the end and there were 500+ stitches a row. It got to the point where if I managed a row a day, I was thrilled.
I'm not making a giant lace shawl again for a while though. The only lace I make next will be tiny.


In summary:
Yarn: 1300ish yards of white mohair (there's a tiny little cake left).
Pattern: Icarus, Interweave Knits, Summer 2006
Needles: Size US 4 (3.5mm) Addi Lace
Time: A little over a year, but much of that was in time out
Cost: Around $15, if I recall.