Bought the pattern to test-knit Lindsey (Lligett)’s beautiful handspun! (The fibre is, I believe, from Southern Cross Fibre.)

The pattern:

The pattern comes with a chart (not written instructions), and the instructions are quite minimal. The only photo is the one showing the shawl draped around a dummy -- there’s just a simple line diagram showing the overall shape of the shawl, so I was really thankful to other Ravelers who had posted pictures of their shawls. The shape is so unusual that, although it’s easy to achieve, I would have had a hard time visualizing it!

If I were to knit this again, I’d change a few things. First, I love the fabric this created, but it seems small even for a shawlette, so I’d either go to a sportweight yarn and larger needles, or work out the math to increase the pattern.

Second, the pattern has you knit eyelets up the short side (while you work the stockinette) AND work eyelets as you pick up the stitches on that row, so you have two rows of eyelets on that edge where the lace begins, and only one row on the long edge. I’d omit the pairs of YOs and decreases up the short edge of the stockinette section, and just knit it plain.

When I knit this, I subbed my preferred decreases: I used SL2 K1 PSSO instead of SL1 K2tog PSSO for a straight double decrease, instead of one that leans. I also used SSK instead of SL1 K1 PSSO for the left-leaning decrease. Personal preference, entirely!

Finally, the bind-off was confusing, as the pattern has you KFB in row 113 (the last lace row), but only shows 1 stitch above that in the charts -- it should be 2 stitches. I found that I needed to CH3 in BOTH of those 2 stitches in order to have enough give in the bind-off. This may be an artifact of using thick-and-thin yarn, as some of the stitches were substantially smaller than others because of the slubbiness.

All of that said, however, I really do like the shape of this shawl. If I were to design a shawl of my own, I’d be intrigued to play with this idea some more! The pattern was easy to read, if sparse, and the charts clear and error-free apart from what I described above.

The yarn…

What can I say? It’s gorgeous! This is the first handspun I’ve ever knit with, and the first singles yarn I’ve used in over a year. I suspect it may be closer to a sport-weight than a true fingering, but that worked out fine in this case.

The colours are a delight -- gentle, shifting, and never quite the same each time they appear. They’re hard to photograph, but the little kicks of vibrant purple really set off the golds and greens nicely! The water was a little discoloured, when I soaked the finished scarf, but the colours don’t seem any less intense.

For a singles yarn, there was remarkably little kinking or overtwisting; nor was it ever particularly underspun. I was nervous about blocking it, and didn’t tug especially hard on it, but it was surprisingly strong, and could probably have withstood much more vigour.