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inspiration Monday: scowl, and the world scowls with you…

[Apologies for the late, after-Monday post, y’all. The blog scheduler burped! If you needed a do-over for Monday, here’s your permission. Happy Monday (again)!]

I have a new obsession: shawl/cowl hybrids, affectionately known ’round here now as ‘scowls.’ Specifically, the brain children of Hilary Smith Callis, aka The Yarniad: three of her patterns slam-dunked into my Ravelry library last week, all for this great new-to-me shape. Basically, these pieces start out flat, like the beginning of a triangular shawl; but after a few rows, you join to work them in the round, and the front ends up sumptuously longer than the back.

Let’s start with Starshower:

All that great texture and lace, front-and-center under your pretty face, right where you want people to notice it. But unlike larger shaped shawls, which you have to re-tie periodically (and if you live in a windy spot like I do, ‘periodically’ means ‘every five minutes’), this scowl shape just pops over your head and never unwinds itself!

See? Less in the back, more in the front! So you can squoosh this up under your coat without feeling like Quasimodo, all hunched up with too much material back there where no one can admire it.

I love love love a great openwork texture married to a bit of garter stitch – such a great way to showcase pretty yarns without making things too busy.

Starshower was designed with sparkle in mind, so it’s a good thing Tina’s got shiny toys for us –in Super Sparkle, that is! And lookie there: Starshower needs 400 yards for all the scrumptious, sparkly goodness, and Super Sparkle provides… imagine that – 400 yards exactly!

If you’ve got any last summer road trips planned before the back-to-school onslaught, this would make a great one-skein-takealong. Wind up your skein before you leave, print out your pattern, grab your needles and pop it in a cute project bag so you’ll be set for hours of entertainment. With sparkle!

Want something on slightly larger needles? How about Dewberry:

and Adama:

… aran-weight near-instant-gratification knits that might just jump off your needles in a weekend. Dewberry calls for 200 yards of a worsted- or aran-weight yarn (exact gauge not being critical, you can swatch with a needle size that gives your chosen yarn some nice drape). When Tina announced the launch of Plushy this last week (at its generous introductory price of $5 off per skein!), I knew it had to become my first Dewberry. The shaded solids that came out of the barn this week (immortalized in Tina’s photo on Instagram) nearly made a thief of me. (Knowing how sad that knitter would be if her order was delayed was pretty much the only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow around that skein of Bladderwrack on the Rocks!)

Adama calls for 300 yards, which must mean it’s just a bit more lavish – but either way, you’ll have enough in one skein of Plushy (ONE SKEIN!) to make either scowl. Just a little over $20 and hours of knitting pleasure could be yours, not to mention snuggle time around your neck when you wear it.

Thank you, Hilary, for my new obsession! I’m off to cast on this skein of Super Sparkle for my very own Starshower (perhaps I’ll finish in time for the eclipse?).

 

This week’s quote, to get you thinking:

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Karim Seddiki