I've had the hardest time keeping this under the wraps! I had a vision of a shawl in the summer but since I thought of making it into a mystery knit-along, I had to wait. Next, I waited for the two Finnish indie dyers, lanitium ex machina and iKKe to put their yarn kits up for grabs. And then, I had to wait for the MKAL to start in September. So much waiting! I tried to keep my cool and let everyone else have fun with the MKAL but then I couldn't stop myself and I just had to cast on for another shawl. And then, more waiting: I still had to wait until today to get to show you these pictures of my beautiful shawl - except that now there are already two shawls to show you.
What: Shake it up / Own pattern
How: Circular needles 3.75 (grellow shawl) and 3.5 mm (blue-beige shawl)
From: Fru Valborg Merino Swirl, 280 g (grellow) and Koukuttamo Hehku Singles + Madelinetosh Merino Light + Uschitita Merino Singles, 58 + 93 + 95 g (blue-beige)
The mystery shawl consisted of a total 13 clues that had variations of garter stitch, stripes, lace, brioche and at the end, one row garter stitch stripes.
The idea is to take three colors and play with them to see how beautifully they can blend together. Shake it up starts off with color 1 and soon, you'll begin striping with color 2 until you will switch it to be the main color.
Color 3 is worked in unnoticed. There's first brioche with colors 1 and 2, color 2 being on top. At the halfway point of the brioche you will switch the background color to color 3. There's some striping with colors 2 and 3 until at the very end you'll be using colors 3 and 1 together. There's something exciting happening all the time - yet the shawl looks quite harmonious.
Color 3 is worked in unnoticed. There's first brioche with colors 1 and 2, color 2 being on top. At the halfway point of the brioche you will switch the background color to color 3. There's some striping with colors 2 and 3 until at the very end you'll be using colors 3 and 1 together. There's something exciting happening all the time - yet the shawl looks quite harmonious.
The shawl has an arrow shape. You start at one sharp corner and work increases at the edges and decreases in the middle. At the end, the wedge at the center is filled up working decreases at one edge of the shawl while continuing the increases at the other edge and the decreases in the middle.
You might think the shawl is finished once the wedge is filled up. But there's one more section to work: you'll pick up stitches from the bottom edges of the shawl and work garter stitch edging using color 2 and shaping it with short rows. If you still have enough color 2 left, you can work an i-cord bind off around the shawl. It really ties the colors together.
One of my favorite things about Shake it up is that you can use the rest of the yarns to make tassels. This way you won't have any left overs.
I had so much fun organizing the mystery knit-along. So much that you can be sure, I'll do another one next year!
If you happen to be in Finland next weekend, please do come and join us for Shake it up meet up at the yarn shop Lentävä lapanen in Järvenpää.
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