Wing It

Cozy Shawl(aka "Wing It") is finished! This is my first shawl, first lace, and first project in wool, and I've learned a few things:
#1: Wet wool has a mind of its own. It will stretch as far or as little as it wants and there's not much you can do about it.

#2: Thursday is a bad day to block because A, the sink and tub are dirty and B, I can't vaccum with a large piece of knitwear taking up a large piece of the floor in my room.

#3: My bathroom sink has indigestion again and it's not my fault. It's not the shawl's fault either.

#4: Because the shawl(according to the pictures in the pattern) is not really supposed to be blocked, mine is substantialy bigger than the one pictured. It's several inches longer than I am tall. I'm 5'4". You do the math(this is not a bad thing at all. I love the biggness)
#5: Sticking pins in the carpet brings me a bizarre happiness.

#6: I need to get some kind of gridded blocking board so I can block in straight lines more easily.

#7: Lack of a gridded blocking board can sometimes induce a lovely design feature. Example:

I was unable to get one side to go in a straight line, so I pinned it out into a swooping pattern. I'm glad I did.

#8: Lace is not really lace until it's blocked.

#9: Wet wool is incredibly heavy and does not smell very nice.

#10: Dry wool smells very nice(unless it's fresh off the sheep and hasn't had the smell of sheep excrement washed out of it)

(It's wider than it looks here. Some of it is scrunched up at my neck)

In Other Knitting News:
"Dobby Hat," found on a blog. A lovely, quick, easy knit, good for scraps. Contact me for a link to the pattern.
"Calorimetry" from Knitty.com. This is an alternative to a hat that's designed to be buttoned under an updo. But going by the fact that it's long enough to tie under my hair, there's a teensy possibility that I maybe might have had a bit of a guage goof. It's not a terrible mess-up, since I can still use it. I'm going to make one on smaller needles and/or fewer stitches for Thing 1.

I had a gloriously small amount of yarn left over from the shawl, so I didn't save it. I put it in the bag with the other tiny scraps that I'm saving for stuffing toys and stuff. But later I decided to try out hand-felting, so I pulled it out and knitted up a weensy swatch.
I held it under warm running water(running water is not nessecary, I should have just filled the sink) and rubbed it in my hands for about 10 minutes, and this is what I got:
Felt. The process of felting fascinates me, and it kinda freaks my mom out. I can't wait to do a whole project in felt.