Adds to the weight of this bell-bottomed tear

This pattern, Strathcona by Jane Richmond, was exactly what I was looking for, when I started thinking about a light, truly summer scarf for my sister. I wanted something she could wear in warm weather that adds no warmth. OK, you still wouldn't wear it on the hottest of days, but it's close to being purely decorative.



At first I thought of cotton. That would have been heavier; this linen (a 4ply I bought in Japan) is perfect. I think this is the first time I've knitted with linen. I've seen many knitters complaining about it being hard on the hands. It's true, it is like knitting with thin string, but it didn't bother me. I enjoyed it, because I could see it was turning out how I wanted it to!



It was easy and pretty quick to knit. There's not lot more to say, I'm very happy with how it turned out. Oh I wish I'd made the garter stitch sections on the ends a bit shorter.



I may yet adjust it a bit as she said it started to grow a bit with wear.

four star daydream

I started this, the 'Askews Me' shawl by Stephen West, not long after last Christmas. It was holiday time, I had finished a lot of projects and I took the opportunity to cast on a couple of new things for me. Of course I imagined wearing this very warm shawl by the coldest part of winter. I loved knitting it and it went pretty fast when I was working on it, but unfortunately it was also put aside several times through the year, so I only finished it quite recently. It's been too warm really to wear it, except a couple of times at home in the evening. The yarn, Filatura di Crosa 'Zara', is super squishy and quite light.



This is my first brioche rib project and I loved it. It took a little while to get into the rhythm, but it's not hard at all. Being a Stephen West pattern it has some fun other stuff going on. I wasn't sure what shape it was going to be until I took it off the needles. I did have some trouble weaving in the ends in the brioche and I'm not at all happy with those spots - after I washed the shawl it grew quite a bit, which was welcome, but almost all the spots where I wove in the ends show. You can probably spot some of them in these photos. Boo.



Though it's a bit bigger and chunkier than I expected, I think it will be fun to wear in cold weather. The colour scheme was directly inspired by a handknit cowl, striped in grey and fluorescent yellow, which I admired on an interstate colleague during a long meeting in a cold room. I had trouble capturing it in my photos, but the yellow I used is truly fluoro/neon, not just a bright yellow. There have been a few fluoro yarns around in recent seasons, and they are ugly/beautiful. My contrary self does love to try to use something 'ugly'. I love the high-contrast result with the dark blue.