I have finally finished knitting the Renaissance Shawl, and it is now blocked on our livingroom carpet and slowly drying. (The cat is somewhere outside, where she spends the days in this summery weather, so there's very little danger of cat attacks until the evening.)

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Last week saw the last two rows being knitted...


I finished it off yesterday evening. As is to be expected, it didn't look super-spectacular after being taken off the needles:

... but that improves dramatically with a bit of water, a bit of time and a lot of pins:

I remembered from last time that I knit this that blocking was the biggest challenge for me (followed closely by the bind-off, but that is due to my non-existent practice in crocheting). This time, I started in the middle and basically stretched out the "eyes" (the big holes) and the grid pattern below so they looked more or less round and balanced, and the rest sort of followed suit. I went from the bottom middle to the right and left, alternating, until I reached the last third or so.

Since I added an extra repeat of the leaf pattern in the middle section, the wings did not end up touching each other at the tips, but overlap for a good bit, so I pinned the first one out completely, then pinned the second one on top of it.

Pins for the inner rim were only necessary in the last third or so, where the wing ends are; the rest needed no pins for extra stretch.

And now I shall wait for it to dry - it shouldn't take too long with this warm weather. After that, it's wait and see when it will be cool enough for me to need this shawl... but autumn is coming, and what is more fitting to wear in autumn than a shawl knit from pumpkin-coloured wool?