You may have noticed an overarching theme to my knitting for the past few months – shawls, particularly, green shawls! To be completely honest, it started out as an unconscious trend, but soon even I couldn’t be completely oblivious to the overwhelming pile of emerald shawls I was accumulating.
Luckily, I have some amazing women in my family, so I knew that they would all find a good home, as well as be perfect, handmade with love, Christmas gifts. This plan pushed me to knit a few more green shawls to round out the number, a particularly welcome “task” for someone like me. As an aside – that is not my Mom’s hair sticking up in the below photo, it is just an unfortunately placed tree, barren of leaves, that really looks like crazy hair [thanks for being the model Mom!]
Before I was a knitter [so odd to think back to those days : )], I’m not sure the idea of wearing a shawl had ever crossed my mind. I knew that my mom had an old one that she had crocheted, but I never really considered that I might want to wrap one around my shoulders someday. Now I can definitely see the attraction – they use just the right [read: affordable] amount of delicious yarn, they take long enough and are large enough to feel like a substantial project, and they yield the opportunity to practice new stitch patterns and techniques. The variation in construction between different shawl patterns also contributes to the illusion that you might actually sometimes wear 28 different shawls, thus rationalizing more shawl knitting. Vicious. Cycle. Well, not so much a cycle as many straight lines that all lead to more shawls.
The final shawl in what I’ll be calling my “emerald period” [which I still consider myself to be in, and for which I see no end in sight] may be my favorite. I cast on for it almost as soon as the Winter Knitty came out – Citron by Hillary Smith Callis. Luckily I had some Malabrigo Lace in Verde Adriana on hand [again, in order to be completely honest, since finishing this knit I now have more Malabrigo Lace on hand]. While I found the knitting a little bit tedious on this one [especially at 540 sts for the ruffle!], I really, really love the finished product! I’ll definitely be knitting this again soon, with the aforementioned Malabrigo Lace! I would happily recommend this pattern for someone looking for a really soft, simple and adorable accessory. I just hope that the recipient [who looked adorable in the shawl, by the way], is continuing to wear it [just how I showed her - like all the cool knitters are wearing them! : )].
All together now!
I am so glad I found you and your blog. I was looking for a simple sweater pattern because I bought some Peruvia but not enough yardage for a full sweater ( stupid, I know, but fell in love with the color and that was all the store had). I found Margot! perfect I said and I am almost finished. With all the snow we have in Central Va. I have been able to knit some this weekend.
So Margot led me to your blog and then to Estelle ( which I have just purchased on Ravelry). I really like sweaters with round yokes or raglan sleeves because they are so comfortable and more flattering. Thanks for the waist shaping too.
I look forward to reading more in the future and introducing you to my other knitting pals.
Stay Warm and happy stitching.
Joan
Thank you for your words, Joan! I love to hear about people knitting my patterns, and I really appreciate your encouragement!