Wedding Pictures and Lady's Circular Cape

As I mentioned in the last post, I also made the Lady's Circular Cape (rav) from Victorian Lace Today. It's an awesome book. I really didn't like the cape when I first saw it, but when I saw this one (rav) on Ravelry, I HAD to make it for my wedding. In fact, it's the reason I bought the book. I was going back and forth on whether or not to buy it, due to the fact that I rarely buy books and it has the pricetag of enough Knit Picks yarn for a sweater, but I went for it anyway, and am so very glad I did. I originally wanted to knit my wedding dress too (rav) but am actually pretty glad that I didn't. I got to have my grandmother make my dress instead, my grandmother who made all her daughters' wedding dresses, all our first communion dresses, and multitudes of other formalwear dresses. I'm the oldest grandchild, and the first one to get married, so it's nice that she could help me with it. Well, more than help - it was one of those "here, let me do that part for you so it's lined up right - and this next part is kind of difficult too - and..." so while I picked out the pattern, bought the fabric, and cut out all the pieces, she really made the dress. And it turned out a HECK of a lot nicer than if I were to have done it. She's a perfectionist, and most people couldn't believe that the dress was homemade. We made the veil too - JoAnn's has some awesome veiling material with shiny bits in it, and that's what we used. I can't believe how many pictures I have, and how few full length ones there are of just Lee or Lee and myself. This is the only full length shot of me in my dress with no flowers in front of it.

Speaking of flowers, look at the amazing arrangements from the cake table! There's the main arrangement, the smaller ones on the candlesticks, and the cake topper, all flowers picked from the grounds and arranged beautifully. The cake is a spice cake with buttercream frosting; the same recipe that Lee's great-grandmother made for his parent's wedding. It was excellent and delicious and wonderful. All in all, we had a really cheap wedding. It was amazing and lovely for the small amount of money that was spent. Homemade dress, homemade cake, and awesome flowers, all made with love. We had a great Justice of the Peace officiating in the formal garden, and it was just great. I don't see how it could have been much better had we had months and months to plan. The only difference is that there are definitely more people I would have liked to have had there, but due to the timing and the room we booked for the dinner, we had the perfect amount.

Now comes the important part of the post: My Lady's Circular Cape. I finished it with a 3-needle bindoff in the car between the ceremony and dinner, so it wasn't blocked, but it was done!

It looked nice and served its purpose of keeping me warm in the restaurant well. And now I have a lovely cashmere/silk capelet to wear for future occasions. If I ever have an occasion that requires something as nice as this lovely cashmere/silk capelet.

Shawl while blocking:

It's right underneath a skylight, and I just couldn't get the other lighting to make the square go away, so it's there. Anyway, specs:

Pattern: Lady's Circular Cape from Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Filatura di Crosa Superior, 75% cashmere, 25% silk laceweight, 2.2-ish skeins
Needle: Boye Interchangeables, 7 for body, 6 for edging
Timeframe: Started this on June 17. Got married on June 30. Finished blocking July 3.

Mods: Bunches. I took out two of the twelve body panels, because I didn't like how voluminous the cape is. I wanted it to just come around my shoulders and barely close if I want it to, not to envelope me completely. I also changed the edging along the bottom for two reasons, one being the time, since my wedding was closing in, and the second reason being that a lot of people have said that they've run out of yarn due to how much the edging eats it up. I was NOT going to run out of yarn, and I wanted to have it done for the dinner, so I modified it. Instead of the row of eyelets and then the triangular points as the edging, I just did the eyelet row, slipping the outside stitches to create a nice edge. I like it the way it is, but if I ever do want to fill out the edging to match the sides and neck, I can easily knit on the rest of the edging. Though just the eyelets took FOREVER, so I'm not sure how much I'd want to do that again!

It now hangs oh-so-beautifully. I've been on the lookout for shawl pins, since I'm starting to amass a bit of a collection, but I haven't been able to find any I've really loved that are versatile enough to go with a bunch. I've seen a lot of pewter ones, some awesome ones that would really only go with the perfect shawl, and a bunch of cute knitterly ones that really aren't what I'm looking for. I want simple, elegant, most likely silver, versatile, and gorgeous. Something that I can wear out with a nice dress that will catch the eye of non-knitters. Something like that. Can you point me in the right direction?

One last shot of the cape, stretched out on a lichen-covered boulder. Beautiful, isn't it?