Articles

Pat’s Illusion Bat Shawl

Now you see it, now you don’t!  Pat’s Illusion Bat Shawl is her first foray into the world of shadow knitting.  This is a technique where you knit 2-row stripes in contrasting colours, and make a pattern from the placement of knits and purls.  Purl sections in one colour contrast against knit stitches in the other colour, and vice versa.  The whole design only shows up when you view it at an angle.  Straight on, all you see are stripes.

The pattern is the Illusion Shawl Bat, available on Ravelry.  Pat used four skeins of Artfil Belle, two each of charcoal gray and hot pink.

Like all shadow knitting patterns, it’s very easy to work.  But, you do have to keep track of knits and purls, so there’s a lot of counting involved.  As long as you don’t mind that, it’s a really fun technique!

Mairi’s Ruffled Wrap

This ruffled wrap has been at the store as a sample for a while, but we’re featuring it now as a pattern suggestion for the BC Garn Bio Shetland promotion.  It’s a great free pattern by an unnamed designer for Patons UK.

Mairi used just four skeins of BC Garn Bio Shetland, in the colourway ‘Washed Jeans’.  You won’t be surprised that the colourway goes beautifully with denim jeans for a great casual look.  The wrap is worked side-to-side with increases up to a middle point.  So, it was easy to judge how much yarn to use.  Increase for two skeins, then decrease for two skeins.

The pattern was great fun to work.  Most of the knitting is garter stitch, with tiny little cables to add interest, and short row turns to give extra volume for the ruffles.  The long crescent shape is very flexible, allowing the wrap to be styled many different ways by adjusting the drape.

Also, it’s super-warm, thanks to the lofty, woolen-spun characteristics of the Shetland yarn.

 

Lisa’s Bubbles and Brioche

Bubbles and Brioche is another of the popular Stephen West shawl designs.  Lisa knit this with a mix of sock yarns from Canadian independent dyers.  Nina carries a fine selection of hand-dyed sock yarns to choose from, and we love the strong contrasts that Lisa has chosen.  That neon yellow-green colour really pops!

Lisa says that what she liked most about this pattern was:

  • learning the brioche stitch. 
  • the interesting stitch pattern changes incorporated in the design
  • the very cool “peacock effect” by the end of the project
  • how much fun it is to do the bubbles
  • using high contrast colours that really make them pop!

We agree that it’s a great pattern for learning new skills – nothing too difficult, but tremendous fun from start to finish.