New pattern for Knitting & Stitching Show!

This post was supposed to begin “thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you’re reading this as I make my way to London.” however, thanks to some extremely busy work days and considerable exhaustion, I’ve had to edit it slightly. So:

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I’m writing this on my way to London using my iPad, the app Blogsy and the coach’s wifi. Don’t you just love the 21st century?

It seems rather appropriate to be posting under these circumstances, since in a round about way, it’s this trip that has kept me from posting over the last few weeks. In the middle of the summer, I had a Ravelry message from Nikki at Fibres Exotica asking if, rather than destashing some of my silk yarn, I’d like to design her something with it instead. Having made a couple of things for her before, I thought for all of 4 seconds before jumping at the chance. Previously, I’d used a 4 ply silk to make a hat, and heavy recycled sari silk for a bag. But I knew deep down that this yarn wanted to be a shawl.

I then proceeded to spend the next few months faffing. My original idea worked, but not for this yarn. And everything else I did just wouldn’t work. After 4 days of fighting with it in menorca, I was about ready to give up. Then I spent a day mostly just staring out of the window, watching the sea, and I knew where I’d gone wrong. So I picked up my hook when I got home and just started to stitch. After 2 days, this shawl emerged, doing exactly what the yarn wanted to do in the first place.

I’ve called it Making Waves from that first, incredibly powerful mental image that dictated its construction. The edging ripples and waves – you can make it lie flat, but I’m not sure why you’d want to. The joy of working with pure silk is its movement and life, not to mention how warm it is. There have been a few cold days since I made it when it’s kept me properly warm, to the point of having to take it off before I over-heated! Because the increases are at the ends as well as the centre, it curls around you for wearing, which is also useful for something as slippery as silk! Who knows what I’m going to do now the sample is going off to its new home (well, mostly what I’m going to do is make another, but I will miss the sample anyway!)

The pattern will be on sale at the Knitting and Stitching show for the next few days, then will be on Ravelry after that – I’ll let you have the link when I have it.

Goodness, I really didn’t mean to write so much about this shawl. But it’s been a fixture for me for a month now – I found a mistake in an early row while writing it up, so had to redo the whole thing from scratch – so I suppose I’ve just become attached to it. It’s currently in tissue paper at the bottom of my bag, but I might have to fish it out for a last look before handing it over. If you’re at the show, do wave at it for me.

Posted with Blogsy