Posted in knitting

First Finish of 2026

Hello friends. Despite the fact that I have been silent for more than a month, my needles have been busy. I cast on this shawl pattern by designer Andrea Mowry in early December. I cast off on Friday. The close-up above gives you an idea of the shawl’s textures and colors. In the past, I would have photographed my yarn selections as I bag them up into project bags. This project got all knitted up without any photographs of the yarn. Reviewing my yarn buying history, I found these Knit Pick skeins were purchased in January of 2025. So I’ll just link you to the vendor’s site.

Hawthorn in colorway Goddess

Hawthorn in colorway Sweet Home Tonal

Twill in colorway Lavender

I am particularly fond of the Twill yarn. Because it is a 3-ply yarn in a plump merino wool, it makes very nice stitches that have good definition. I’ve already bought more for a fun cardigan that is planned for later in the year.

Anyway, back to the finish: This shawl is Big:

It stretches beyond the width of my queen-size guest bed. I’m guessing the wingspan is about seven feet. That will make for a good couple of wraps around the neck. Iowa is COLD. I have discovered that the more wool items I have on, the better I feel.

To learn more about Andrea Mowry and her fabulous designs, click here.

What’s on your needles?

Posted in colorwork, knitting

Cast-Off Monday

Shaking things up a little bit, with a Cast-Off Monday post. Since I have failed utterly to document my progress on this knit, I’ll start at the end of my work, and just mention the beginning.

This colorful wrap is a result of raiding my stash. Much earlier this year, I pulled full and partial balls that sorta went together. After matching the resulting yardage up with a pattern, yarn and copy of said pattern were shoved into a bag. Eventually I had five bags of future projects hanging in my yarn closet.

It was time to start this one. Sorrento Wrap is designed by Sian Price-White and calls for two colors of yarn – dark and light.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sorrento-wrap

https://images4-g.ravelrycache.com/uploads/CloudForestStudio/674348453/webp/20200114_083517_small2.webp#jpg

I had selected five different yarns for this project, with the intention of working the extra colors into various sections of the shawl.

Almost immediately I discarded the rayon blend red (in the upper left of the bowl) when it proved to be too flimsy. All other yarns, with the exception of the warm pink yarn, are by KnitPicks. The two blues are Gloss in fingering weight. The multi is a Stroll hand-painted. I’ve forgotten where I got the warm pink fingering weight.

After I finished my cast-off today, I stepped outside for a quick photo shoot.

Diamond and chevron sections are visible here. That diamond stranded section gave me trouble while reading from the row-by-row instructions in the pattern.

I ended up charting it out.

Another modification made was to add a few matching beads to the chevron border.

The section with the light blue stripes features diamond mosaic stitch pattern. That was my favorite. I’ll want to work this mosaic pattern into a future project.

Fresh off the needle, the shawl looks pretty awkward. Once I’ve blocked it and woven in ends, I’ll get another photo, then decide if I like it or not.

Posted in knitting

Friday Finish

As promised, here is my purple shawl. The close-up photo shows all the sections: neck area, mosaic section, lower section and finishing band. I like the colors very much, especially the purple.

Stretched across a chair, the pattern looks just fine.

But once the shawl is wrapped around one’s neck, it become obvious that the neckline area is far stretchier than the mosaic, so it turns into a little collar.

The collar then covers over the patterned section. So, it ended up being a waste of time and energy to design and knit the mosaic pattern.

I’ll probably hang on to this shawl, at least until I get a chance to wear it a few times. It looks kinda pretty draped over my tomato cage.

Off I go to my yarn closet, for the next stash-busting project. In a future post, I’ll share my plan for how I am organizing projects from stash yarn.