Tweed Boomerang: Knit, Blocked, Details

The shawl is blocking! 

But I can certainly lay out the details here, before it's dry and ready to pose with.

I started with these three yarns:

On the right, a skein of Socks That Rock Heavyweight, to be the main color. The other two, acting together as 'contrasting color' (since the pattern calls for MC and CC, though of course you can use whatever you want to, whether that's one yarn or five), are rather mysterious yarns that I got 10 years ago at Coveted Yarn, that purport to be camel. Are they really? Where did they come from? After all this time, even Robert from Coveted may not remember.

The pattern is called Tweed Boomerang by Lauren Parker, and as it calls for 350-460 yards of DK weight, and I did use DK (or roughly so, anyway; the Ravelry page for the STR calls it a light worsted weight, and who knows exactly with the camel) and I used 560 yards, I may have made it larger than most. Which is a feature, not a bug! I wanted it big and cozy.

I used size US 7 needles, starting with a short one, then moving to a longer one, then two longer ones that didn't get along very well, so I finally got off my duff and borrowed the right size interchangeable tips from another project (remember this?), and a really long cord, which at more than long enough was a nice change from almost long enough.

I started with the solid yellow (colorway Saffron Surprise, bought at Rhinebeck in 2012--this is the shawl of long-time stash, isn't it?), and knit until I liked the length. Then I started alternating the lighter camel with it, and went on until I ran out of STR, all but a few grams. From there, I alternated the two skeins of camel until I finished the lighter skein, and did the lace/mesh/open bottom to the end of the red yarn. Bound off with Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off, and there we are!

For the blocking, I pinned all along the red edge, to open up the mesh there, and I stuck a pin in the very tip of the yellow, which wanted to curve up a bit (more so when dry, but I wanted it to dry flat if possible)(there was some puckering along the top edge as well, which seems to have come out in the wetting and blocking; final results on that to come). Otherwise, I just laid it/pulled it into place, and it stayed pretty well.

A few notes:

• It took me three weeks to knit, with more knitting time than I often manage: I kept wanting to see how it would look as it went, and managed to stay dedicated to it the whole time, other than sock-in-meetings knitting.
• The camel yarn was a little harsh on the fingers to knit with, but feels nice once knit up. Perhaps the washing will soften it more? Who knows.
• The red yarn bled a bit in the soak, and while I changed the water a few times, the yellow picked up some reddishness, like very faint tie-dye. Which I'm okay with, at least while wet: we'll see how it looks when it's dry. It's not super-noticeable right now.
• I've seen people modeling shawls and using a cuff/bracelet to hold the two ends together, and feel like that might work here. Have you done that? Any suggestions?

A few more pre-blocking photos. For example, right side:

And "wrong" side (which I like just as much):

I love how the slipped stitches up the sides look so neat and chain-like.

Dry-on-the-mat last night:

And wet, pinned, this morning:

It grew a bit! I look forward to trying it on, once it's dry.

The inspector checked my work this morning:

And was unimpressed. (Yes, she also walked on it.)

She decided that it would do for a wash spot.

"I don't know, Mom, these pins seem kind of hazardous, just here where someone could bump into them..."

Now, any questions?