WIP
Published on January 2, 2020

Using the KISS Method to Design My First Shawlette!

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Hello, beautiful crafter! Hope you’ve managed to find some moments of peace during the holiday season. We were still reeling from Christmas festivities when the New Year knocked us on our bums.. But now I have had a breath of fresh air and had a nice long think about how I want my first shawlette to look.

A Look Back at Preparations

Actually, this thing doesn’t even have a name yet! Okay, I’ll have to sleep on that one… For now, you remember the yarn I am using for this project, Scheepjes Skies – both Heavy * and Light * weights. Here are the 2 hanks with the swift I used to wind them up.

And here are the yarn balls, all ready to go. I even decided to use a yarn bowl! You an find this beautiful yarn bowl at WoolWarehouse.*

Scheepjes Skies

By some modern miracle, I’ve worked through most of the ball of yarn in my little yarn bowl. Here you can see the fruits of my labor, a dinky half-pint ball. This part of very “stare at the TV”, as it’s just linen stitch, but I have hardly had a chance to sit down long enough to work up more than 5 rows at a time.

Skies Heavy Yarn Details

  • Fiber Content: 100% Premium Blend Cotton
  • Hook/Needle Size: 6mm
  • Yarn Weight: DK
  • Ball Weight: 100g
  • Length: 170m

Skies Heavy – 100g Hanks

KISS Design in Progress…

Well, here you have it! Like I said, it’s just linen stitch for now, so not very exciting. It must seem weird that I chose such a simple stitch, but I have a couple of reasons.. First, I decided to make a shawlette for the crafters who love simple mindless projects (don’t worry if you like to sink your teeth into projects, the bottom half of the shawlette is lacy, so there will be some engaging parts!).

Many of my projects are sort of on the complex side, and truthfully the maths are my favorite part of design, so sometimes I do get carried away with challenging myself to make a tricky pattern and still have the numbers work out. However, I know there are loads of crafters who just love a simple, rhythmic project. And I love them too! So this one’s for you.

And second, I decided to start with an easy design for my first shawlette. I do have a few scarves, but nothing shaped like a triangle – okay I designed that one weird shaped shawl, but even that started out as motifs! For this one, I wanted to make it start at the center of the shawl, and then grow into a larger triangle from there. Super simple!

In fact, that’s what I keep reminding myself every time I want to add in a flourish or a new stitch on this portion of the piece. I remind myself that I am using the Keep It Simple, Stupid method, and I just stick to the linen stitch.. Okay I may add a little something different at the very end of this part, but nothing too crazy.

Check out the humble WIP, laid out. My favorite part is that the way I start and end linen stitch, it has a nice little bumpy and decorative zig-zag at the top edge of the triangle, that you can already see very well in the photo below.

Coming Up: Lacy Bits!

I am still hatching a plan for the lace edging of the shawlette, but trust me, it will be in the simple realm as I truly don’t want to make anyone work too hard on this one. Just pure post-holiday-chaos bliss is what I am going for. Pick up your hook and yarn, and just zone right out.

The blue ball of Skies Light * is staring at me longingly, but for now I have a few more rows left of the linen stitch to go.

One last beauty show because my WIP just keeps posing for me!

See you tomorrow for Week 3 of my Botanica Blanket CAL! It’s a fun one!

Happy Crafting,

Rachele C.

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