I have been knitting on mitts like crazy, but for some reason I have shifted my interest to shawls. Seriously, I am dreaming about lacy shawls and the yarns in the stash. Must. Have. A. New. Shawl. It is a serious case of shawl longing for sure. It is less than a month from the Interweave Yarn Fest and I need to be flashing a new shawl when I go. It’s a matter of pride.
And besides, it is raining outside today. Gloomy. Cold. I can’t be expected to knit in these conditions. I need to go on a pattern hunt and then it is time for some serious stash shopping.
I think that the whole “I need to knit a shawl” thing started when I saw this yarn at the local yarn shop. Doesn’t it look like a great warm weather shawl? I want the body of the shawl to be in the light color and the bright yarn will be used for some type of color pop. Maybe knitted lace at the bottom of the shawl can be in the bright color. I have some shawls in my shopping cart at Ravelry (OK. There are 58 items in the shopping cart. Some of those must be shawls, right?), so I headed on over there to see what I could find buy.
We have a winner! This is Waiting for Rain by Sylvia Bo Bilvia. I’ll be adding lace to the bottom and maybe some other pops of the bright color yarn. I bought several other shawl patterns that were in my cart while I was there with a smoking PayPal account. Here they are:
- Exploration Station by Stephen West
- Rockefeller by Stephen West
- Princess Shawl by Lil Weasel
- Best Friends Shawl by Lil Weasel
- Solaris by Melanie Berg
Well, once I had all of those patterns printed out I headed up to the stash to dig around and match yarns with the patterns. My stash is in the walk-in closet in the spare bedroom, so I took my laptop and a latte up with me and dived in.
I am so fired up and energized to get knitting on the new shawl projects. Check out my Ravelry queue; it is now really shawl intensive. This afternoon the sun came out and I spent some time knitting on the current projects. I do believe that I will have some FOs to show off by the end of the week.
About stinking time I got something finished.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
beautiful color palette!
It was love at first sight when I saw those colors. They are just happy!
they are!
Aren’t shawls just the best?
Yes! I pretty much wear them all the time in cooler weather. What’s not to love? For me they are color, texture, lace and cashmere (if I can get it) in one happy skrunchy package. 🙂
I’ve been having a love affair with shawls in the last year too! They are so rewarding and an excellent stashbuster I’ve found. I love your organizing method, I need to begin a similar system with my leftovers for scrap blankets 🙂
The plastic boxes have really had an impact on my stash. It is so easy to organize and to pull out a project box when it’s knitting time. Even better, they are an IKEA hack: the shelves were only 40 dollars and the large boxes (not from IKEA) slide in perfectly with 4 per shelf. The small boxes fit 3 across the shelf on the top shelf. The tops of the boxes have latches; no wool moths in this stash!
It’s perfect. I had / have everything in banker’s boxes but not being able to see what I have is a major flaw. I’ve begun slowly replacing with lidded, clear plastic boxes and already it’s helped with using stash. I may break down and buy something new for ‘Drachenfels’ – I’ve re-queued it after seeing your post 🙂
You are so organized! Love the colors in your stash!
Thanks. Too bad my organizational skills don’t extend to the garage…
What gorgeous patterns and yarns. I love the idea of the best friends shawl 🙂 I really want to knit a shawl but I just haven’t found the right pattern yet 😦 I can’t seem to settle on one. I’m wondering if it’s because I am still rather a beginner knitter
Okay, so that published halfway through for some reason!! I am sure that if I was choosing a crochet pattern I would have it on my hook already! I think I just need to go for it but then I have several other wips – not that that has ever stopped me before!
They are so addictive and useful you won’t be able to stop with just one. They are like socks; intimidating when you decide to make the first pair, and then once you are done knitting those you are on the hunt for more yarn and a new pattern. 🙂
I absolutely Love your stash. I also had to drop everything and start a shawl. I already had a lovely gradient kit from a Stockholm indie dyer, and once I got my Plucky yarn fingers where itching to start my planned striped study shawl. I’m not really a shawl person. I don’t knit them very often, but I can already tell that this one will be one of my absolute favorite knitted items so far, so I might be hooked now.
I just finished some little projects and will be casting on my shawl this weekend. It is really hard to knit just one . 🙂
I forgot to say that I can’t wait to see the shawl. A Stockholm indie dyer. I love it! My family came from Sweden, but no one speaks the language anymore. We still cook traditional Christmas foods (except lutfisk. There was nothing my mother could do to get us to eat lutefisk!) and I have knitted items from my mother that I think have traditional patterns.