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My friend, Donna Druchunas, loves pi shawls (made larger by doing massive amounts of increases on rows selected by the pi principle to create a circle) and she is a wizard at designing them.\u00a0 She asked me to help her make her Mystery KAL design for 2021 an intarsia shawl.\u00a0 The first design I worked on was a half-pi, worked flat, but neither of us liked the way it was turning out.\u00a0 I developed a way to do intarsia “in-the-round” (not really, it’s a magic trick. Shh!) and our next attempt was a full circle pi shawl.\u00a0 This proved to be a winner.\u00a0 I loved knitting it, and the MKAL started last month.\u00a0 Knitters have their final clue now, so I am posting my photos of my own WIP.<\/p>\n
Every color block needs the same amount of yarn, so they can be cut and wound at the same time, and carried with the project in a small bag. There was a lot of yarn leftover, maybe enough for a hat.\u00a0 But, I’m thinking some starry night socks might be in my future.<\/p>\n
Shawls with any lace in them need severe blocking, and a bed is my favorite spot for this.\u00a0 I can shut the bedroom door and keep the cats out.\u00a0 Why do cats think that wet knitting is a great place to lie down? It’s a mystery…<\/p>\n
I generally design “on the needles”.\u00a0 I have a rough idea of where I am going, and Donna wrote up a pattern for the first few rings.\u00a0 But, I need to knit it to see whether it is easy and fun to knit.\u00a0 If it isn’t, I’m going to change something to get there.\u00a0 But, the first few rings were smooth sailing.<\/p>\n
The intarsia sections went smooth as silk, the first time, and I knew we had a winner.\u00a0 The intarsia rings knit up very quickly.\u00a0 I like to use small circumference circulars, which keep the stitches close to the tips.\u00a0 This makes for faster knitting.\u00a0 So, the expanding shawl started to look like a large bag, on my lap!<\/p>\n
I sent Donna photos, with measuring tape, so she could see how big it was getting.\u00a0 We had planned another ring of intarsia, but at this point it was a great size, so we decided to stop here and start the edging.<\/p>\n
The knitters have been doing really well on the MKAL.\u00a0 Some of them used different yarn, and I can’t wait to see their shawls.\u00a0 I’m planning to knit another one, with multiple colors.\u00a0 I haven’t decided if I want one main color for the plain rings, and then multi-color blocks, or another variation.\u00a0 I’m going to keep it in mind, and wait for inspiration when I wander through my stash.\u00a0 I love working with Donna on projects, and I am very happy with this design.\u00a0 I hope other knitters will be, also.<\/p>\n
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