I finished my version of the A Walk in the Park shawl:

The shawl is part of The Signature Collection designed by Erika Knight in collaboration with A Yarn Story, the Bath yarn store run by Carmen Schmidt. I knit it as part of the KAL with A Yarn Story. The design is actually for a triangular shaped shawl, as below:

I have never been a huge fan of triangular shaped shawls, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to style them properly. However, I really liked the contrasts in this shawl between the deep brown and white graphic stitchwork and the bright pops of colour. I decided to knit the shawl as a rectangle instead. It was a bit of a gamble, but I think it paid off.

I bought the kit in the original colours of Walcot yarns Origin, a lovely, bouncy worsted weight wool. Emma and I had a chance to see the shawl in person at the Unravel Festival and decided to substitute the soft purple-y pink yarn for a brighter pink (which I blogged about here).

I then had to decide whether to knit it back and forth width-wise or lengthwise. In the former case, I could fit in all of the different pieces of the original pattern (and then some) but the stripes of colours and textures would run across the shawl from side to side; in the latter case, the stripes of colour and texture would be very long, running from end to end, but I would have to select which bits of the pattern repeats to include and which not to include (because the width of my rectangle would be less than the long edge of the triangle shape). I chose the lengthwise option, in part because I like knitting shawls that way, and in part because it gave me the look I was after. You can see below how nicely those long stripes of pattern look.

I did some calculations and decided to cast on 360 stitches, using a US8/5mm needle. I then basically knitted the beginning sections of the pattern, but without any shapings (no decreases), and with some variations in how many repeats of each pattern to knit, so that the combinations of stripes of various widths and textures and colours would look pleasing to me. I started and ended it with 1×1 ribbing in the bright pink.

One of the difficulties I found while knitting it is that the gauges for the different textured patterns was not the same. For me, the unblocked gauge of the slipped stitch stripes was 26st/10cm, while the gauge of the slipped stich squares was 24st/10cm, and the gauge of the moss stitch was 22st/10cm. I became convinced that this would end up in a disaster as the fabric was incredibly wonky given the wildly different gauges of the varying stripes. I was also worried about the ribbing, especially on the cast-off edge, which tended to roll backwards. You can see both of these problems in the below photo of the edge of the unblocked shawl:

I kept knitting, however, even in the growing evidence of disaster because (1) I couldn’t bring myself to stop, and (2) I have tremendous faith in the power of blocking. And, if I do say so myself, it turned out pretty good.

Today is the final day of a long holiday weekend. Life has been pretty crazy lately, so I hope that you have been able to find some peaceful moments to enjoy the start of spring; perhaps with a walk in the park?