shawl kit | From the Purl Side

The ELK, herself, EastLondonKnit, has been kind enough to offer to help me out for the next few weeks as I am swamped with some personal stuff! Here she is for her first post, discussing her inspiration for Naloa! Thanks Renee!

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Hello!

When Linda told me she had a new, exotic yarn base made of silk and yak and that she was working on a palette for this new yarn inspired by Tibetan traditions, I was so excited! The richness of tone and hue were visually intoxicating and I was only too happy to design something to compliment the beautiful combo of yarn and colour.

After much debate, we decided the undyed Yurt and the gorgeous Turquoise Tarn were destined to be a new shawl.

Now I have never been to the Himalayas, so I have no idea how accurate Google’s depiction of the beauty of the place is, but it looks stunning.

This is a Himalayan Tarn from Adam Elliot’s superb photography blog.

A beautiful image of a tarn from my neck of the woods.

I love the naturally bright blue green of the tarn against the stark, rocky mountain landscape, and took the water as my inspiration.

The summer-time weather dictated something lovely and lacy. For this shawl, I wanted the ‘work’ to be right-side only— in other words, every WS row would be simple purling; I wanted the rivulets that radiated from the centre all the way to edges to create a distinct and easy-to-follow structure, and I wanted some variation on simple stripes. I began to swatch…

…and sketch….

And it wasn’t long before it came together. In the end, I think I managed a shawl that is enjoyable but not complicated to knit, which shows off a gorgeous yarn.

Naloa shawl by EastLondonKnit, image © EastLondonKnit

Happy knitting!

Renee

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You can find Renee on her website or blog and follow her on Twitter or Instagram.!

I have been wanting to share this with all of you for ages and can finally let you all see one of the amazing projects I have been working on – Antiprism!

Kettle_Yarn_Co_Antiprism

Some of you got a chance to see this beauty in the flesh at Wonderwool last weekend, and may have even seen me wearing it to keep warm in the chilly hall. The wrap was like a warm hug in the damp cold!

The garter-stitch shawl/scarf/wrap is a collaboration with designer extraordinaire Renee Callahan – aka Eastlondonknit – and uses my bouncy, super-soft, 100% Superwash British Bluefaced Leicester fingering, TWIST.

Lightweight and bouncy the shawl is worked from side to side and features a frame of simple lace filled with wedges of alternating colour to show off the ombre combination of shades. A lace border is picked up and knit along the bottom of the finished shawl and then a binding is worked across the graceful undulating waves at the top of the piece.

The finished piece is large enough to be worn as a wrap, shawl or scarf and is a perfect year round piece to add a shot of boldness to an outfit.
There are 5 colourways currently in shop for the kit. The groupings will change with available hues, and may not be repeated.

The kit includes yarn quantities needed for one shawl – 4 skeins of TWIST and a Ravelry pattern download code. Each skein is 50g = approx. 183 m | 200 y with the total yardage adding up to 732 m / 800 y.

I am having troubles deciding which colours to cast on! Which will you pick?