Now we weren't technically lost in the forest. But we were snowed in for a couple of days. No need to feel sorry for us though. Can you imagine a cozier place to be trapped with plenty of books and booze and food and firewood? All good.

I was working on the Lost in the Forest shawl, available for free on Ravelry.com. If you click on the link, you'll see the pattern has a more elaborate bottom edge on it – another whole section really - than what I ended up making.

I used what I'm pretty sure is Expression Fiber Arts Superwash Merino Silk Pearlescent Fingering (50% merino wool; 50% silk) in the April Diamond colourway. I say "pretty sure" because it was an oopsie skein that I bought blind at a deep discount.

One oopsie in this yarn was pretty obvious: several vivid green blotches interspersed here and there throughout the skein. Another issue only became apparent when I was knitting. Several sections of the yarn were either dramatically thinner or dramatically thicker than the rest. I don't mind a little variance because it provides character, but some of the pieces were just too fine and had to be cut out. The green had to be cut out as well. I used Russian joins (one of my favourite techniques) to connect it back together.

I wasn't entirely sure how much I was starting with and lost more length than I expected with the pieces I had to cut out, so I did not have enough yarn left to complete the final section. Fortunately, I realized it only a very short way into the final section, so I didn't waste much time. (I do want to reknit this pattern sometime or use the technique for the final section on another project because it was very cool. You knit sideways to the main shawl and pick up stitches from the preceding row as you go. Similar in theory to the edging on the entrelac baby blanket but ever so much fancier.)

What I ended up doing instead was a frilled standard bind off. Handy-dandy instructions for it and some other useful bind offs are at the link. I liked how this technique flowed with the edging really nicely. When I blocked it, I pinned the points of the edging and am quite pleased with how it turned out.

Oh, and fear not. I wasn't really out of yarn. I had another work in progress to finish, which I cannot post until the someone special it was made for receives it. Plus, I had two (or maybe three?) more back up skeins and patterns so I could choose what I wanted to cast on next. Sheer heaven!