Catch some blackbird’s wing

My Blackbird poncho/shrug is finally done!

I bought this kit at MDSW earlier this year. It was totally an impulse buy, but I loved it. I think I’m going to love wearing it, too. Just to recap, the main fabric is a strand of sock yarn and a strand of mohair held together. I worked a very large rectangle in stockinette stitch (BORING! but good for social knitting). There were three sizes in the pattern, and I worked the largest one because the rectangle seemed so small. Now I wish I’d gone smaller, but I’m not turning back.

Then I picked up 373 stitches on each side in order to work the colorwork band. This was time consuming, but my confidence about picking up stitches improves with each (large) project where I do it. I don’t do much stranded knitting, so I expected the bands to be a challenge. To my surprise, they practically knit themselves! With each row, I was left wanting to see how the next one unfolded. I slowed down at once point because I knew I would run out of yarn, but then I remembered that I had a swatch I could unravel. I did, and finished the colorwork. I didn’t have much of the main sock yarn left, though:

The bands were knit in the round, so when I was done I had a weird shape like this:

Can you see where this is headed? My first steek. Here is the area that had to be cut:

There are at least a few ways to stabilize the fabric before steeking, but I knew I was working with slippery sock yarn and would need to be aggressive. I hauled out my sewing machine:

This was not easy to sew. I’m sure there are adjustments you can make to a machine, but I don’t know what they are. This heavy knit fabric did not want to feed. But I managed to get some zig zags in:

And then I cut between them!

I turned back those edges and sewed them down. Then I blocked.

I keep my blocking pins in a little tea tin. It pleases me.

You can see that the final shawl is longer than my blocking board – I made do. It took me a while to get to a Joann to get buttons (12 buttons, .5”) and sew them on. At that point, it was done! It has been raining here for weeks and weeks, so I’ve been waiting for a good time to photograph it. This evening worked:

I am so happy about the sunshine, because Kris and I are going to the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival this weekend and this weather is going to continue. We first went in 2015 and had a great time. We’ve been wanting to return, and this is the year! The weather will be sunny and crisp, just perfect for a weekend of loving wool.

P.S. – the post title is a line from Nanci Griffith’s “Gulf Coast Highway,” one of my all-time favorite songs. Here’s the verse:

And when we die we say, we'll
Catch some blackbird’s wing
Then we will fly away to Heaven come
Some sweet bluebonnet spring