Summer Rain Shawl by Leah Batt

Summer Rain Shawl

Knitting
June 2017
Sport (12 wpi) ?
24 stitches and 36 rows = 4 inches
in Reverse Stockinette St
US 5 - 3.75 mm
700 - 760 yards (640 - 695 m)
66”/168 cm across wingspan 31”/79 cm depth
English
This pattern is available from mscleaver.com for $6.00.

ERRATA: The initial st count is off by 4 sts, either cast on 439 sts or skip the decreases on the first lace row.

As a child, I dreamed of summer storms.

Growing up in northern California, my summers consisted of soaking my swimsuit in the sprinkler and rushing to the driveway to leave an ephemeral body print on the concrete; of running barefoot across the hot asphalt to my friend’s house and trying not to burn my feet; of the dark towels my mother put over the windows in the daytime to keep out the heat.

I wanted my summers to be cooler, wetter. I thought a summer storm would be the perfect antidote to the dry California heat, a backyard sprinkler writ large.

Having lived in Maine for a decade, the dozen or so summer storms take on a different role than I imagined as child, offering not an invitation to play, nor to hide, but to simply be still. After a stretch of hot sunny days, the plants in my garden welcome the rain. I follow their lead, raise my face to the heavens and drink it in.*

This shawl is knit flat from the bottom up. You will decrease 4 stitches every right-side row through raindrop pattern and every row thereafter.