Wednesday 22 August 2012

My First Mystery Knit-a-Long. . .

I've long wanted to join a mystery KAL on Ravelry and when designer Stephen West offered up one last month, I immediately signed up. I've long admired his designs which are really original and modern in their shaping. All we knew was the name of the shawl and the yardage we'd need. It's called Rockefeller and every Friday for four weeks a new clue would come in my email and you'd knit that bit and wait for the next clue, not knowing how the whole thing would turn out. Over four thousand knitters were participating providing plenty of chat and help on the ravelry forums, and it was fun seeing everyone's different yarn and colour choices. I used two skeins of British wool that I picked up at Woolfest - a variegated Bluefaced Leicester/Gotland mix from Jillybean Yarns called Knot Another Granny Yarn, in the colour Mountain View, and an alpaca sock yarn from Fibre Harvest. 

This was Clue One in which I practiced doing short rows.


Clue Two was this middle bit of stockinette with some yarnovers and Clue Three became the bottom border which had some fun slip stitching. 


And here's the final shawl with two long narrow pointy wings of garter stitch stripes that were Clue Four.


I really love it - I think it's going to be my go-to fall wrap as you can wear it a lot of different ways. It looks equally good as a shawl with the main bit on your back and the two wings coming around the front, or as a squishy scarf with the main bit on the front and the two wings tying behind your neck. I really enjoyed the experience of doing the mystery KAL as well and have already signed up for another one which starts at the end of this week.  It's a lace shawl called Out of Darkness by Boo Knits and calls for 700 beads!  I'll be using some Madeleine Tosh Prairie from my stash in the Oak colourway in combination with one of these beads. It's hard to see, but I'm leaning towards the beads on the far left which are a dark gray.


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