The tale of two shawls

I was traveling last week so I did a lot of knitting. I finished this shawl. It is a version of Stripe Study, made out of natural undyed alpaca. The black was leftover from a previous project so I used it till it was gone. Amazingly, it ended correctly at the end of a row. I then continued with the gray. Both are from local farms. I picked the black up at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck a few years ago. The gray is from Woodstock Knits. It is called Bare Alpaca. The hand is lovely.

The gauge on this is larger than the pattern calls for. I did it in a sport weight yarn instead of a sock weight yarn. But I adjusted the needle size and knitted it to the dimensions called for. Alpaca stretches so I made it a little smaller than I ordinarily would with wool.
Then I started another shawl. Garter stitch and sock yarn make great travel knitting. It is compact and easy. I took bits of leftover sock yarn and started this. It is almost done. I have 4 inches of the plain teal to knit and then I bind off. I like how it is turning out. If I run out of the teal, I will continue with the the green handpainted yarn. The two handpaints are Koigu Painter's Palette Merino, the camel is Stahl Socka and the teal is Lang Jawoll.
When I finish this, I am starting a Taygete in 2 colors of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the multis. Again, simple travel knitting. When I get to stay home, I will finish up the RLC sleeve. It is also mindless but the bulk of the sweater makes it difficult to carry around.

I will leave you with 2 photos of my hotel room from the last trip. The first is looking into the bedroom from the tub. Yes, that is a glass wall in the shower. There were electrically operated blinds in the shower but I didn't figure that out till the 3rd day. Thank goodness I was alone in the room. This next photo is from the bedroom looking into the bathroom. You can see the sink and the tub/shower. The toilet is behind the frosted glass doors on the far side of the bathroom. There are frosted glass sliding doors at the entry to the bathroom also.
It was a very nice hotel. Rather modern but comfortable. Not enough outlets and the lights next to the bed were dim. But otherwise quite comfortable.