see the sea

back in january we wrapped up our ENVY 2015 club with this final design—see the sea—an asymmetrical crescent shawl that makes the most of a gradient yarn or one with random striping, the kind of colorations you get when hand spinning with dyed roving.

the pattern includes two sizes; one is a larger shawl (shown above) worked with two skeins of yarn, while the other works well as a shawlette or scarf (see below) for those single rare gems in your possession.

on this raw day in january, when we headed for the water to photograph the shawl, emily braved the climate with only this shawl between herself and the icy wind.

she’s such a great sport; thank you emily . . .

this piece is terrifically fun to knit in a variety of yarns; if you don’t have something self striping in the stash to work with, it is easily worked in stripes of separate yarns or a handpaint with longer color repeats. a colorway with lots of contrast will show off the exaggerated waves in the pattern to great effect.

designing for our clubs is one of the many joys of my work—thinking up surprise twists and turns that no one expects, making the most of a particular and specific yarn, highlighting its best qualities with just the right motifs and details, collaborating with a special dye artist to realize a vision, and then creating a photographic world in which to display the results—these are the ways that my work brings me close to our whole community.

this particular design took our ravelry clubhouse by storm, with many members quickly knitting a first one in the club pick of that month, then moving on to knit another in something else. the yarn choice was a custom blend of  entropy sport made with sea cell fiber (instead of nylon) in a colorway dyed especially for us by lisa westra of feederbrook farms.

lisa’s colorways supply the perfect palette for creating a gorgeous final masterpiece of undulating patterns that ebb and flow across the fabric surface. if you are spinning a tour de fleece project right now, this design could work really well with your resulting skein(s).

the patterns are extremely easy to work, but if you are hesitant, there is also plenty of support in our knitspot ravelry group—start a thread with any question and you’ll soon have a group formed to chat your way through it! i’m sure there will be many clubbies anxious to share their FOs and advice on the subject, haha.

speaking of ravelry, the pattern is available in our ravelry pattern shop as well as the online shop here on our website. to purchase pattern or view complete details, please click the link to check out the listing in the knitspot pattern shop or here to view it on ravelry.

this entertaining and quick knitting shawl or scarf will make a gorgeous going away gift to a college bound teen or holiday gift for a special friend or relative—cast on for one today to knit through the rest of the tour de france or the upcoming olympics; it makes for great TV knitting if you’ve got a little experience under your belt.

and i know a few of you could even finish one before our pairings club gets going . . . a great way to pass these last few days of anticipation.