It was a long way to find out what kind of Tokyo shawl I really wanted.

My idea was to use Ruppert Soft Lamb instead of Spinni to make it a bit lighter. I am still facing the challenge of picking the right Soft Lamb colors - there are so many, and obviously I did not have in my stash what I needed to keep to the Isager color style - but I think this can be solved.

I first tried to replace Isager Alpaca1 too by the much cheaper Drops Lace, but that did not work out because it was too shiny and did not wrap around the other thread so well, so the “mashed” effect did not come out the way it should.

OK, so I decided on the Alpaca 1, so that was settled. But the next problem was the color choice. I did not want to knit the dark variant with the 4s. The 7s was too brown for my liking and also I think it does not match well with very light or very dark colors. The new medium grey 3s fits well with light colors, but this might get a bit boring when used in the whole shawl, and after all it makes all colors even more grey.
I know I am sometimes difficult to satisfy … sigh :-(

I was even in the process of giving up on Tokyo for now and switching to Steven West’s “Samen” when I had the idea to combine them: Knit a shawl following the Tokyo pattern, but use more than one color for the “Beilauffaden” (Alpaca 1), by replacing it gradually, not at the same time as the other thread, but alternating, as in “Samen”.

I am still not sure how this will work out, but I had so much fun knitting my Zigzag Tunic,
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Smilla-DA/zigzag-top
with mixing all kinds of Isager and similar colors, so maybe this idea can be repeated here.

Starting - rather un-colorful - with

1) Alpaca1 in 47/ Soft Lamb in “Monsoon”
followed by
2) Alpaca1 in color “Schiefer” handdyed by Wollsinn (from Barbara)/ Soft Lamb in “Monsoon”

2a) (small stripe) Alpaca1 in “Schiefer”/ Soft Lamb in “Damask”

3) Alpaca1 in “Schiefer”/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
4) Alpaca1 in 2s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

4a) (small stripe) Alpaca1 in yellow-green 40 / Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

5) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
6) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Spinni in 10s

6a) Alpaca1 in 4s/ Soft Lamb in Marlin

7) Isager Highland in Sky / Karen Noe Merino Fine in grey
8) Alpaca 1 in Schiefer / Soft Lamb in Mushroom
8a) Alpaca 1 in Schiefer/ Spinni in 39s

9) Alpaca 1 in Schiefer/ Spinni in 6s
10) Alpaca1 in 2s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
10a) Alpaca1 in 46/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

11) Alpaca 1 in 3s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
12) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Spinni in 10s

12a) Alpaca 1 in 47/ Soft Lamb in Monsoon

13) Fair Alpaca Lace in NFA10 (medium grey)/ Soft Lamb in Smoke
14) Alpaca1 in “Schiefer”/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

14a) Alpaca1 in “Schiefer”/ Spinni in dark purple

15) Alpaca1 in 61/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
16) Alpaca1 in 2s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

16a) Alpaca1 in 4s/ Soft Lamb in “Truffle”

17) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
18) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Spinni in 10s

18a) Isager Highland in Sky / Karen Noe Merino Fine in grey

19) Alpaca 1 in Schiefer / Spinni in 13s
20) Alpaca 1 in Schiefer / Soft Lamb in very light beige, don’t know the name (something like sand)

20a) Fair Alpaca Lace in NFA10 (medium grey)/ Spinni in 3 (gold)

21) Alpaca1 in 2s/ Spinni in light yellow-green-grey 29s
(DONE UNTIL HERE - got stuck again because I ran out of the Aplaca1 in 2s)

22) Alpaca1 in 2s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

22a) Rowan Lace in pink/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”

23) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
24) Alpaca1 in 3s/ Spinni in 10s

24a) Sock yarn with alpaca by Bremont (?) - leftover from himawari

25) Alpaca1 in 46/ Soft Lamb in “Blue Pearl”
26) Alpaca1 in 4s/ Soft Lamb in Marlin

I had 3 meters left over of the Alpaca 1 3s ball (I even had to rip out swatches to be able to complete the 8th stripe)- so exactly 8 stripes can be done with 50g (with my needle size).

21.10.2015
Finally this monster is done and blocking! Length is more than 2 meters. Proper pictures to be taken next weekend.