October ate my life

Holy cow, October was a whirlwind. Between managing the complex schedule of my new Kindergartener, Atlanta’s Shop Hop, Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool, and Halloween – I just lost an entire month. It was plum crazy. Which is not to say that I didn’t do any knitting. I totally did. I have a little surprise that should be coming out soon and I managed a fast and fun new pattern that is currently in testing. Hopefully I will get it out this month also.

But right now I am working on re-knitting a previous shawl. I KNOW, crazy talk!

But I kinda have to. You see, this summer I was lucky enough to have a shawl pattern published in the great UK magazine Knit Now. Because Knit Now is in the UK, I send the sample of – never to be seen again. It isn’t that they wouldn’t give it back, but the amount of rigamarole I would have to invest to get it back is not worth the time and money it would take. Instead I let them auction the piece off for charity, frankly it is a win/win as far as I am concerned.

It’s called the Scarab Shawl – here is a bit of a peek

But I need a sample. I need to take photographs and I just get all nervous if I don’t have a sample. What if I need to do something with the sample? What if, sometime in the nebulous future, I am actually in a position to do a trunk show … waitaminit … gotta quit laughing hysterically … Regardless of the sanity of the desire, I wan/need a new sample. The rights to publish the shawl independently revert to me in December and I need to be ready to hit the ground running.

The original piece was for the Summer and the yarn choice I made was tailored to that idea. Knit in a cotton/wool blend it is a great sundress shawl. For my new sample and for December  I want to see how a different yarn choice will work out. Yarn makes a monumental difference in how a knitted item turns out. You can take the exact same pattern and knit it in different yarns and get wildly different finished pieces.

Even I have to knit swatches. Really, I do.

Instead of an accessory for  picnic in the park I want an elegant drape for a holiday soiree. Something luxurious to wear to a fancy dress up party or to simply class up an outfit. Believe it or not, a different yarn in the same pattern will do this. And I managed to acquire the perfect yarn. Miss. Babs Tierno is a 50/50 Alpaca/Silk blend in the DK weight that I need for this shawl. And it is fabulous to work with. I have been swatching (as you can see above) to make sure my gauge is good before I hit the extra long cast on. It also comes in generous 310 yards skeins, so I am taking the opportunity to add a few repeats to the pattern to make a positively enormous shawl.
With the instructions for the larger size I will have a little “added bonus” for the downloadable pattern that wasn’t in the publication. Yay! Of course you can still make it in the original yarn, or substitute something of your own plotting to make the shawl uniquely yours. Could be fun!

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