I have been doing surprisingly well with my resolution not to let the stash keep growing this year, and have bought very little yarn, but when I saw on Twitter (shortly after the nine-foot linen scarf debacle) that Tangled Yarn was doing kits for Clare Devine’s Pwani, using their own wool/cotton blend Mabel & Ivy Coast I couldn’t resist ordering one in lovely restful sea blues (I’m really into blue at the moment, which is something of a surprise because I never used to be a fan).
The pattern is pretty simple, with alternating sections of garter stitch and lace mesh. It makes good TV and knit night knitting, and the shawl was a quick knit (it took me about three weeks). The yarn is lovely, with the cotton making it nice and cool to knit in summer, and produces a really nice light fabric. I was surprised by the size of the finished shawl; I was consistently getting fewer rows per section than the pattern suggested and expected a shawlette, but after blocking I ended up with a shawl that is a good-sized wrap or oversized scarf.
I like it a lot, and I’m sure I’ll wear it lots, although at the moment it feels as though every time I decide to wear a scarf the temperatures get up into the 20s and I end up carrying the scarf around all day (on the days when I don’t wear scarves, it stays in the teens and I think how much I wish I’d brought one, because this is England in summer and that’s just how our weather rolls). I’ve been attracted to a much more pared-down style lately – simple shapes, bold colours and patterns, no fuss – and this shawl fits with that much better than some of the lacier shawls I’ve knitted in the past.
I’m still in a slump; my life has changed so much this year with the change of jobs, and I think I’m struggling to work out where everything else fits in. I don’t know what I want to wear any more, or what I want to knit. I can’t quite work out how to reposition something that used to be an overwhelming obsession as just a hobby. I still think (as per my last post) that the knitting world has changed, but I’ve changed too. I don’t have the time or the mental space for knitting to be the all-consuming passion it used to be. And when knitting and I were everything to each other for so long, I can’t quite see how we can dial things back to just being friends.
