Pumpkin

I finished it! Cast off the last stitches lovingly, one by one, with a huge sense of excitement, last night.

And it was worth the wait.

I haven’t blocked it yet so all the photos are of the shawl in its raw state.  They’re not the greatest pictures in the world as I’m not really used to photographing shawls, this being only the third ‘proper’ shawl I’ve ever made.

Things I love about this design: I’m a sucker for curcurbitas. My favourite thing about squashes and pumpkins is watching the leaves unfurl in the spring and summer. So the beautiful spreading leaves on this shawl gave me so much pleasure. I loved knitting the mist drops more than I expected to! They fit so beautifully into the curve of the leaf.

I was really worried about knitting the edging, being a bit of a newbie to shawl knitting. I thought the lace was going to be a lot more challenging but once you get past the fact that you’re working across three charts, the lace is actually fairly easy. And the charts are really simple to follow.  In combination with Anna’s written instructions, I think it’s fairly hard to go wrong.

And the yarn! Oh, the yarn! Eleanor of Solstice Yarns custom dyed me some solid skeins to go with a gorgeous variegated one she’d done. And it was just so lovely to knit with. Soft, squishy, saturated with perfect Autumny, harvesty, pumpkiny colours. The gold thread running through the whole thing just adds that finishing touch. I don’t normally go for sparkle, but this just sang to me.

Best of all, I have enough leftover to knit another one!

If you want to get your hands on the pattern you can find it here. Or come see us at Unravel in a few weeks and check it out in person.