One last post before Christmas. I had planned to use this time to do some last minute sewing (altering a skirt, making pajamas, and sewing an apron), but frankly I just don’t want to. We had planned to host Christmas Eve, but plans have fallen through, so instead we’ve been baking and doing a ton of laundry, and re-doing our kids room. Bunk beds arrived earlier this week and it turns out building them and organizing a kids room is a huge time suck and also exhausting. So here I am watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while sitting on the couch and hoping my children are going to sleep. Ahhhhhh, it feels nice.

Until a couple years ago I was solidly a sweater knitter. I used to make several a year, but then I hit that point where I had too many. Yes, too many hand knit sweaters. They felt overwhelming in a bad way. I knit a few for my girls too, but they spend so much time outside and running that 2-3 each winter are more than enough. Charlie runs so hot that she barely needs anything long sleeved. I’ve knit a few pair of socks too, but I’m not sure how much people are actually wearing the pairs I gave as gifts. My knitting hit a rut. I’ve managed to finish 10 things in 2017 when I usually make 30+.

But recently my desire to knit has kicked back on and I’ve been knitting shawl after shawl! It all started with an email from Black Trillium Fibres. I opened one of their promotional emails and a purple speckled gradient set was right there calling to me. I bought it pretty much immediately even though it was named for a Star Wars character (not a fan and don’t usually fall for the gimmick).

When it arrived I knew I had to start knitting with it right away. I scoured Ravelry for a pattern and my stash yielded a mini skein gradient from Knitted Wit. Things rarely fall together so well in one project.

The pattern is Passaggio from Lyrical Knits. Mary and I have been Revelry friends for years so I know her patterns are well written and sure to turn out well. Part of my knitting slump was because I was designing my own sweaters. They are gorgeous and original, but something you just want to sit back and let someone else do the math. Passaggio didn’t disappoint. It is thoughtfully laid out and just as the rows are getting really long they start to shorten again. The shape is a trapezoid that provides a nice amount of coverage to keep the chill off my shoulders without slipping off when I move. We’ve had such a warm fall that a shawl of this size can replace a sweater.

The hardest part of knitting this shawl was balancing the amount of yarn I was using. It didn’t quite work out like I’d hoped. On the right is a picture of one of the outer triangle sections. My Black Trillium gradient had 5 shades of purple while my Knitted Wit set had 6 shades of teal. It took some thinking to decide on a layout. So each side triangle has the lightest purple shade for 2 sections then each darker shade for 1 section. That allowed me to use 1 shade of teal for each eyelet row. However from the picture on the left you can see that each section is a bit of a mishmash. I started to run out of yarn. For the center section I had to use multiple shades in each section to make it work. It isn’t what I’d hoped, but it is symmetrical so it doesn’t bother me in the finished shawl.

Gosh, this is beautiful. It took me 2 months to weave in all those ends, but the finished project is so worth all the effort! Since I finished this back in October I’ve finished another shawl and have yet another on my needles. So I’m counting Passaggio as the pattern that got my knitting back on track.

And for all of you who celebrate, I hope you have a lovely Christmas! Santa is on track to visit us in about 25 hours and make two silly little girls very happy. I’m looking forward to a night away with my husband and lots of time hanging out with my sister. Maybe I’ll sew, maybe I won’t. Either is totally fine, but knitting is sure to happen!