Hummingbird

Oh my, how time flies! A year ago, I was starting my very first MKAL and now, the second one is already gone. Did you finish your Hummingbird yet?

What: Hummingbird / Own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.75 mm

From: Twisted Fintch Singles + Lystig Merino Single + PetrichorYarns Merino Twist Sock, 71 + 75 + 72 g

I had a blast last year hosting my first mystery shawl knit-a-long. I knew right away that it would become a tradition for every fall.

People fell in love with last year's mystery, Shake it up and I had a lot of pressure to produce something equally lovely. I knew I wanted to use three colors, there would be garter stitch and brioche. But above all else, it should be something surprising and unexpected.

So Hummingbird starts at the center of the shawl. It begins with a magic circle cast on and you'll first work a triangle of garter stitch with a little one-color brioche stripe.

Next, you'll bind off the edge of the triangle and work two wings with short rows. The turning points of the short rows are left visible on purpose as they get to form pretty little eyelets between the sections.

After the wings, the shawl continues in a more traditional manner with brioche. The two-color brioche section is followed by one more set of wings - this time is seed stitch. And to keep it unpredictable, the wings are of different sizes.

Finally, you'll work two edges with each color and every corner will have a little brioche bit. The stitches are bound off in i-cord and you can use your yarn ends for pompoms.

What: Hummingbird / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 3.75 mm

From: Martin's Lab Merino Singles, 240 g

The shawl started off with a scetch. Once I was happy with the amount of surprise elements and the placement of colors, I went stash diving for my first sample. I weighted the yarns I used for the first shawl, counted the amount of stitches in each section and how much yarn those sections ate up. I like to leave as little waste yarn as possible so I calculated how much bigger I could make the shawl without running out of any color so that you wouldn't have to play a game of yarn chicken.

This year, I had yarn kits in my webshop. It was fun planning the color combos with Martin's lab and I asked for each kit to have a special color not found in their usual colorways

When the yarns arrived in the mail and I saw that one special color was called Anna, it was settled right there and then which kit I'd use to make another sample shawl. So now I have to Hummingbirds but they're so lovely I might keep them both!

There will be a new mystery next fall but before that we're going to have a meetup and a photoshoot for all the Hummingbirds. Please join me for the fun on October 12th at Nurja, the new LYS at Tampere. See you there!