Purple Fade by Brian Smith

This week I have been knitting another shawl.  

It is called Purple Fade because the original design was knitted using purple yarns, but there is no reason why it should be.  I used the colours that I had.

This is one of the projects that I have been meaning to knit for over a year.  The pattern was published in a little booklet which accompanied Knitting magazine Issue 191 and is dated March 2019.  As soon as I saw the design – I thought – I would like to knit that - I wonder if I have got any suitable yarn.

I collected together several balls and skeins of yarn which were left over from the Knit the Sky project that I worked on in 2017.  This includes two different Isager yarns – Highland Silk and Alpaca 2, 3 different shades of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift and a Mirasol yarn which is a mix of wool, silk and alpaca. 

I arranged the yarns on the floor in my lounge ready to knit the shawl.  That was in March 2019!  When I realised that I wasn’t going to get on to it – I carefully moved them to the bed in the spare room – and they stayed there until February 2020.  They had gradually been buried under piles of other things that were put on the bed -  but in February I cleared out the spare room and picked them up and put them back in the lounge!  I have been looking at them while I was knitting my Brick Wall bag.

I love the pattern – it is very easy to follow.  I changed it a bit!  I always do.  I was supposed to only use 5 shades of yarn and the first and last sections were supposed to be knitted using 2 strands of the same colour.  However I wanted to use 6 colours and I was worried that I would not have enough yarn if I didn’t use another shade.  While I was knitting I also changed my mind about the order in which I would use the yarns.

I think it only took about 4 or 5 days to knit the shawl.  I was only knitting as normal – not all day.  It is knitted from the top down – so every row takes longer to knit  but because it is mainly stocking stitch – it was easier to remember when to do the increases.  I like garter stitch shawls but I often get confused about whether I am on the Right or Wrong side.  Even if I mark the sides – I still manage to get confused.  Anyway – there were no such problems with this shawl.  

I did change the last section.  I worked two rows in the last combination of colours before I started the rib effect and then I made the section a bit shorter because I was running out of yarn.

As is typical of me – I was thinking about knitting other things while was knitting this shawl – not least having another go at the shawl – maybe using 1 strand of double knitting yarn for each section.  I was wondering if I could make it look right and whether I have enough of the yarn that I was thinking of using as it was discontinued years ago.  I have written a “Things to Knit” list and this shawl is not on it – but that has never stopped me before!