If I had the capability to do so, I'd show a picture of the latest shawl. It is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi pattern (Vernal Equinox) in half ( a half circle shawl). By the last row, there were more than 600 stitches on the needle! Took a really long time to get those stitches worked off in crochet.
Since the yarn was mostly acrylc with some mohair, I decided to block it with the steam iron and it worked beautifully. No way could I do it with my lace wires. There are only two flexible wires in the kit and this shawl was way longer than what those two wires could span (it is a half circle, which means it needs to be blocked in a half circle). Besides, even my double bed wasn't big enough to spread it out and the weather was too bad to try it on the lawn. Besides, again, the edge was ruffly, so I'm not sure the wires would have even worked.
I was surprised at how quickly the shawl worked up (relatively speaking, of course) but I was using quite large needles - 10.5 - and the yarn was about sock weight. I had doubts about the yarn; normally I prefer not to use something with that high an acrylic content (okay, call me a yarn snob, I just like natural fibers more) but it handled quite nicely, definitely easy to rip out when mistakes were made, fortunately few. The yarn came into my place of work as a donation and I claimed it for a future give-away project, which this will be as soon as I find someone needy, but I wasn't sure I wanted to use it for a shawl. I did need to do something with it and I needed to start another shawl (I try to keep one going all the time)so this yarn was it. My efforts weren't wasted.
The wedding shawl and mitts were delivered and worn at grandsons/new granddaughters wedding in New Zealand. They were much appreciated and looked lovely on the bride.
I finally got a copy of Nancy Bush's Estonian Lace book. The shawls are so beautiful and I plan to start one as a next project, but first I am doing another wedding shawl in the Valentine pattern, this time with a lace border. The yarn is the same one I knit the mitts out of, an 80% goat hair/mohair, 15% mohair, 5% lurex mix (it sparkles). I bought this yarn for $1.98 on clearance and thought at that price it wouldn't be much, but it is great! Over 400 yards per ball and knits up very nicely. Can't wait to see how the shawl turns out.