When packing for my trip to the UK, I couldn’t exactly travel without a knitting project. However, the designs I’m working on at the moment are not exactly travel friendly – multiple colors dangling in every direction are not a good thing to risk outside of your own comfy chair! So I decided to poke through my stash from my recent trip to Webs’ tent sale, and four skeins of Blue Sky Organic Cotton caught my eye. I have a now-discontinued colorway, Spearmint. It’s marvelously soft, subtly variegated, and easy to pack. I did some poking around on Ravelry and chose the pattern Saroyan by Liz Abinante. It had the right gauge and appeared to have similar yardage. And, as a bonus, IT’S NOT MY DESIGN. Which means I don’t have to think hard while creating. I can just follow the pattern and be done with it!
During the trip, I found some spare moments to knit (for about 20 minutes on the train from Edinburgh to Cumbria, before my motion sickness set in; in the evenings when it was still perfectly light outside at 10 pm), and I came home with approximately two-thirds of a scarf completed. I was hoping to have the whole thing finished so I could photograph it over in the UK, but fun got in the way. So, I worked it up quickly back at home instead. I followed the recommended repeats and ended up with about 20 yards to spare! Perfect!
Since it is summer and a very warm summer to boot, we headed to our local state park where the gardens are in full bloom. They made a nice backdrop for this floral shawl.
The leaf detail in this shawl is really lovely, and not at all difficult to create. I used a US size 10.5 needle with this yarn to create a loose and slightly lacy feel.
The shawl itself is nice and long and not very wide, which means it won’t be super bulky for warm-weather wear.
I’ve decided to keep this one for myself, and it will forever be known as “The UK Shawl.”
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