FO Friday: Ravellenics Edition

Well it's that day of the week again and I have not just one but TWO finished items :) And this week both of my items qualify for the Ravellenic Games on Ravelry - I've never participated before, so I'm very excited to have a few items finished for it. First up is my much blogged about Blue Angel Shawl:

I finished this up on February 15th at 10:30 pm and it is my entry for the WIP Dancing event. This was made with the Blue Angel Shawl Pattern by Stefanie Japel that I bought as a kit through Craftsy. I've mentioned my many woes with this shawl already in other wip posts, but I really do like the finished product. I had a lot of yarn left when I finished where the pattern indicated, so I added 2 additional repeats of the lace border and I am super happy with this decision. I think I like it better with the wider lace border :)

My finished shawl measures 43.5" wide and 21" tall. My only complaint now that it's all finished is the bind off. The pattern says to just bind off like normal and then add a picot edge (which it tells how to do). I took this to mean just a regular bind of (k2, pass 1st st over 2nd st). I even went up 3 needle sizes (when the pattern only said to go up 2 sizes) and I made sure to bind off loosely, but it still is WAY too tight. I couldn't even stretch the edge out wide enough to be straight when blocking. I honestly had to pull the edge so hard while blocking that it felt like the yarn might break, and it still isn't perfect at the corners. Also because it's so tight the little picots curve forward even while you wear it. So, I have to strategically wrap this to look nice. Oh well, lesson learned for my next shawl I guess - ALWAYS use a "super stretchy bind off".

I really do love the lace though :) It was a bear, but I am happy with it now. Also this was made using Cascade Heritage Sock yarn and I am definitely a fan - I can't wait to use this yarn again!

And my second Ravellenics item is for the Toy Tobogganing event: Meet Husky Dave the Dragon!

Dave here earned his name as a collaboration between my husband and me. We were thinking of D names to go with Dragon and settled on Dave. Then I mentioned how he ended up with a bigger-than-called-for bottom since I somehow increased way too much (I still don't understand how I did that). So my husband suggested Husky Dave and the name stuck, lol. I made Dave using the Dragon pattern from FreshStitches. I actually won this pattern in the November 2012 Photo Contest with my Shirley the Alpaca and I had never used it until now. A crime! I decided using this long stashed pattern would be a good goal for the Ravellenics and I'm so glad I did.

The coolest part of this pattern is that it's designed like a "choose your own adventure" book. The pattern includes all kinds of different features you can choose for your dragon - you just make up the ones you want and it tells you how to put them all together. Pretty cool huh? Essentially I could keep using this pattern 20 times and never end up with the same result. This time I chose to give him small horns, wings, beady eyes and an arrow tail. You can also give him scales, cheek flaps, buggy eyes or a wider tail.

I love the cute little nostrils, lol. I also love this fun color combo. The blue is Everyday Soft Worsted in Azure (a new fav), the pink is Red Heart With Love in Hot Pink, and the green is Red Heart Super Saver in Spring Green. All of these yarns were in my stash - I love that about amigurumi. You can just choose colors from yarn you already have and they still always come out cute :)

So there are my Ravellenics projects :) I would like to think I could finish another item by Sunday when the Olympic ends (which is the deadline for Ravellenics projects), but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I did finally pull my Purple Boob Holder out and figure out my mistakes last night. Now I'm knitting the body and it's coming out well, though I doubt I can finish it in a few days. We'll see.

That's all around here this week. Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see the beautiful things others have finished this week :)