Westknits Patterns

I got obsessed a few weeks ago. I saw Wil‘s Daybreak Shawls,

and got to thinkin’. I need more neckwarming things of beauty (who doesn’t?), so I perused our selection of A Verb for Keeping Warm‘s Metamorphosis (70% superwash merino, 30% silk), a yarn that had taken root in my knitter’s heart since we first received it, and, with Star‘s help, picked out two gorgeous skeins.

I casted on that day, and knitted on my Daybreak in PDX (the airport), I knitted between trading off baby-care with the mister on the plane from Portland to Boston to see family, I knitted in a condo sitting next to my mom in the Berkshires, I knitted on the plane ride back, and I finished the shawl 2 weeks exactly from the day I started it. I blocked it on Emily’s extra bed, and started another one the same night, in 2 colors of Zauberball (that was finished in just a hair over a week). Talk about obsession…

What a beautiful pattern! It’s easy, fun, and has enough non-plain-jane stuff to keep a knitter compelled, but not too much so that you can’t enjoy other things while knitting. The shape is ideal – there are more increases than your average neck-down shawl, so the finished object is shaped surprisingly like a Cylon Raider. And, unlike a Cylon Raider, it hugs you around the neck, so it won’t fall off easily.