Cast-on Monday – Crescent Shawl

My new project is in keeping with my desire to work with my stash. I have been wanting to make a shawl with this purple yarn, called Leticia, by Bremont.

Last week, while wasting a lot of time viewing yarns on the Jimmy Beans site (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/ ) I discovered the perfect match from Malabrigo.

I ordered two skeins lickety-split and they arrived post-haste within three days. This yarn, also a singles, combines silk and merino wool about 50/50. It’s hard to describe the silky sheen of this yarn, (I was almost swooning while casting it on and knitting the first few rows.)

For my pattern, I re-visited a Craftsy tutorial by Laura Nelkin, in which she explains how to design 14 different shawl shapes. It’s fantastic, if you don’t mind doing a little math. I chose the crescent shape.

https://www.craftsy.com/class/knit-shawls-14-ways-exploring-shape-design/

My two-color shawl inspiration comes from Helen Kennedy’s Pale Moon pattern on Ravelry.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pale-moon

I love the way the mosaic section bridges the two colors of yarn. But instead of making Pale Moon, I would prefer to use Laura Nelkins’ instructions for the shape and design a mosaic chart of my own.

My first attempt at designing a mosaic pattern, unfortunately, was a failure. Apparently, there are some hard and fast rules about sequencing slipped stitches between the two colors. So back I go to my graph paper for a re-do.