This one started out as some yarn I got from my LYS. They hand-dye a 50/50 silk/merino and have several gorgeous colorways, but dye lots are hugely different. I got the yarn as a gift from a gift certificate a year ago and have been playing with it but nothing transpired until I started this pattern. Unfortunately, I knew about 3/4 of the way in I wold not have enough yarn. A friend was knitting a sweater with the same yarn, from the same dye lot and I traded her the left overs for my roving and started the border. When you start the border on a shawl like this you think "whew! almost there" and then you realized you have to knit about 40 stitches just to bind off one. I had about 600 stitches on the needles to bind off. The border took as long as the shawl.

Anyway, it ended up being a little less than five feet across, with extensive stretching and blocking. I would have liked it to be larger but there is no way I'm undoing my work. Other than that the shawl is perfect--it's pretty, it's soft and drapey, and has just enough weight to feel substantial.

I have another shawl on the needles. It is in a very fine, threadlike yarn and is on sixe 0 needles. I've one almost 100 rows and the thing would block to about the size of a handkerchief. And every row gets longer. It will be a three year project.