Having a Ball With Some Shawls

Before I started knitting, I never wore shawls or cowls, and rarely wore scarves. Now, I always have at least one on the needles at all times. I love the wide variety of patterns, shapes, designs, and yarn possibilities that shawls offer. Plus, I'm always cold, so it is so nice to have lots of bundling options.

Proper bundling technique.

The two shawls I am working on now are also a way for me to use up some stash yarn.  The first is one that I started quite a while back and have been working on intermittently. It is the Hitchhiker Shawl by Martina Behm. I was gifted some bright self striping sock yarn a while back, and while I loved the colors I wasn't quite sure what to make with it. The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, but I'm holding two strands of fingering yarn held double, so mine will be a bit thicker and squishier. Since we're moving to the toasty state of Texas, I might be gifting this item once it is completed! My Flower Power Hitchhiker is making steady progress, and the simple pattern is turning out to be a great project for driving (as a passenger, I swear I don't knit and drive!), mindless TV knitting, or when I'm too tired to concentrate on my more complicated projects.

Simple scarf/shawl, with an easy to memorize pattern repeat. I love seeing these colors blend together!

My second shawl is something I'm very excited about. I had acquired a set of sport weight mini skeins from Mountain Colors Yarns as a souvenir in Muskegon, Michigan last September on an epic road trip with my brother. I've been trying to think of the perfect item to make with them, and I think I found it in the Take it All Shawl. I picked up a few more coordinating colors of sport weight Quince and Co. Chickadee yarn, and I just started the first segment of the many colorful shawl sections. I cast on with US5 needles, but I think on the next section I'll bump up to 6's. Other than that I am happy with the pattern, and very excited to see how it works up! My only minor complaint about my Colorful Shawl is that the yarns are proving a bit tricky to accurately photograph. I can't take pictures of it at night, and during the day I have to get just the right light from the windows to capture the colors correctly.

The early starts of a shawl. My favorite part is seeing how the strategically placed increases are creating the curved edges.

A close to real colors picture of all the shawl yarns.

An example of the completed shawl, from Ravelry user danekken.

I suppose there's one other minor complaint about those mini skeins... Linus was fascinated by them! He tried to walk off with one of the little hanks, and while I was winding them with the loops draped across my knees he kept marching across my lap and gum rubbing the yarn. He was very insistent that he needed to help. At least Apollo stayed out of the way. His new fave hangout is the back of the couch, and he's nearly always lounging behind me. Although he's also made himself a little cat nest on top of my yarn storage bins that gets a nice draft from the windows.

The beasts, doing what they do best. Being weird.

I'm having a blast working on these shawls, on top of the many other works in progress that I also have on needles in various stages of done-ness. Tune in next time to see more!