Friday 4 December 2015

The Doodler: Another Stephen West Mystery KAL. . .



November knitting was all about another Stephen West mystery knit-a-along.  I've participated in four of these now and never fail to be amused and enthralled at his creativity. I can't say that I wear a lot of his shawls on a regular basis out in public (somehow, I just don't have the accompanying wardrobe to wear them with the verve they deserve), but I always enjoy knitting them and seeing the crazy colours that everyone else comes up with.  They are usually quite big and so I do wrap them around me at home quite frequently.  And I always learn some new techniques over the four weeks.

So this year's mystery pattern - The Doodler - called for three contrasting colours.   Week one was fun but a lot of knitting.  It created this almost butterfly shape of increasing wedges with a lovely i-cord edging.

Sponge was very interested in seeing if I was providing  a new bed for her.


But then she decided to try and mimic its shape instead.   I used a skein of subtly hued Scrumptious Sock by Fyberspates that I've had in my stash for a long time, for the main colour.   It paired nicely with some Titus 4ply in the rich Parkin colourway. I love how it glows in the sunshine.


Week 2 was a complete surprise.  I have never knitted a huge increasing cable on the edge of a shawl before.  Just fabulous!


I made some modifications for Week 3.  You had to pick up a lot of stitches along the edge and then knit several wavy wedges.  I wanted to use some Frangipani 5ply Guernsey yarn (colourway is Falmouth Navy) that I picked up in Whitby this summer, but felt it would be too oppressively dark and weigh the whole shawl down.  So I added some new colours and did stripes that gradually get bigger.  Really happy with the balance now.


And then the last week was essentially the i-cord bind-off, with the option to do some picots on the "crest" of the waves.  I picked up the teal colour from my first stripe of Clue #3.


And here's the beast blocking. It took up all my blocking mats and given the damp weather outside, it will probably take several days to dry.  I'm really pleased with it though. It's a very original and creative design and I went a bit out of my comfort zone with the colours.  At least for this one, I didn't have to rip back and start again.  We'll see how wearable it is when it dries. 



There are over 3,000 projects on ravelry from all over the world and in some incredibly bold and exciting colour combinations.  You can take a look here.

1 comment:

Sallyann said...

This looks fabulous you can almost feel the texture through the photo. Look forward to seeing it in 3d.