Pattern: Take It All by Lisa Hannes.
Yarn: TFA PureWash Fingering in *Crystal, Graphite, Highlighter, Seabreeze, Peacock, Ravine, Pink Grapefruit and Orchid. *Crystal is currently an exclusive Club colourway - Chris Grey would be a great substitute.
Ravelry Project page here.
I knit this shawl in exactly 1 week in February. Towards the end I kept thinking "man these short rows are taking a really long time!" thinking that it was something specific about the short rows that was making it feel more time consuming, but then I cast off and held the thing up and realized that the reason each row was taking so long is because it's huge! It's huge and colourful and glorious and I absolutely love it! Like, couldn't possibly love it more, wouldn't change a thing and would absolutely knit it again, LOVE IT!
This pattern was released as a Mystery Knit Along and I wish that I had participated in it because MKAL's are super fun and I don't do nearly enough of them. The pattern is very well written and would be perfect for a beginner because it's written in bite sized pieces (each section being a different clue for the MKAL) and you'd get to practise lots of different stitches and techniques. It's flawless.
Did you guys know that in a past life I seriously considered going to school to become a makeup artist? Then I chatted with someone who had done just that and she informed me that her career involved a lot of powdering politicians before television interviews and not a lot of super fun editorial makeup on models and that didn't seem quite as fun, so I moved on. But I still love makeup. When I turned 30 a few years ago I suddenly became more comfortable embracing a bold lip and one thing led to another and suddenly I'm the type of person who wears a purple-to-fucsia ombré lip on a Wednesday. And I couldn't be happier about that. Chris said it makes me look "a little bit dead" but I told him that if he can't appreciate the value of a perfectly executed purple-to-fucsia ombré lip look then he's not the man I thought he was. I mean, does he know me at all?
This is a very photo heavy post because A) We love photos of pretty shawls right? B) I spent a lot of time on my lipstick. C) I froze my butt off (well, really just my back) for these FO shots and D) I'm very pleased with how these photos came out! The colours really pop against the several feet of beautiful fresh snow we got last week!
A bit about the yarn and the colours: This is the first shawl I've knit completely in our PureWash Fingering base and I could not be happier with the results! I've knit quite a few shawls in merino/nylon fingering weight yarns (sock yarn bases really) and the PureWash Fingering being 100% merino feels completely different. It's light and airy and drapey and blocks out beautifully and is just stunning for shawls. I see many more in my future!
It wasn't until I was well into the knitting of this shawl that I realized I had put together a beautiful 8 colourway palette and the pattern calls for 1 MC and 8 CC's, so I was technically 1 CC short. But since this is the type of design that begs you not to get too hung up on those types of details I decided that I'd just repeat one of my colourways. I ended up using the light grey (Crystal) colourway 3 times because I just loved knitting with it so much! I played around with the colours in a few other places - I used Seabreeze for the last eyelet row instead of my CC 8 (Pink Grapefruit) and cast off using Ravine instead of my MC. I also substituted Ravine for the MC in the centre garter stitch stripe section just 'cause I liked the way it looked and I felt like it. I don't consider those to be real mods, this shawl is all about playing with colour and I did just that!
I am definitely FULLY on board the huge shawl train. Until recently I basically only knit single skein shawlettes but now I am living my best life and am basking in the glory that is being able to completely envelope yourself in your awesomely massive shawl!
Believe it or not this shawl was designed specifically to use all those gorgeous mini skein sets that us hand dyers just love to make. One of our Mini Sock Yarn Skein Sets includes more than enough yardage to knit all the CC sections and since one set includes 12 colours, there's loads of colour-pairing possibilities, especially if you, like me, don't get too hung up on using exactly 9 colourways and are open to playing it fast and loose! I've pulled a skein of Graphite and a Mini Sock Yarn Skein set and put together a few colour pairing ideas for you.
See all the different shawls that could be knit? So much fun right? Of course you don't have to pair it with Graphite, switch up the MC for a completely different effect. Fig for the bottom right combo, Charcoal for the top left? I love them all.
Happy Tuesday friends!
