Craftiness: aranami shawl

aranami shawl

I’ve always loved this shawl, ever since Olga first released it. But I never had the right yarns in my stash, and I knew I wanted something perfect. It took years before I found it! At VK LIVE this year, Tania and I were browsing booths together and the shawl came up—turns out we’ve both been itching to make it. So we started looking at yarns in the booths with it in mind specifically, and what did we find but Neighborhood Fiber Co’s ombre kits. We debated colors, debated the shades within colors, and ultimately decided to split this batch of teals. I took the yarn home with me because I knew I’d likely tackle it first, but I had no idea how fast I’d complete it!

Since each scallop is a single motif (you pick up stitches for each one), this shawl breaks up into small components and is thus entirely addictive. Eventually I timed how long it took to knit one scallop, and I clocked in at something like 28 minutes. Which means it was so easy to say “oh, just one more.”

I didn’t weave in the ends as I went, because the method I was using didn’t seem to be creating the cleanest results. But every few days I’d weave in ends instead of knitting another scallop, and so in the end I didn’t have too many to deal with. I’ve never been so responsible about ends on a project before! But I was savoring every minute working on this shawl. I loved the yarn, and I was sad to be done with it when I finished.

Mine seems to have come out on the small side, height-wise, but it plenty wide. I’m actually not even sure what size needle the pattern calls for—I basically grabbed what seemed right for the yarn and forged ahead. I think it’s perfect.

I shot the shawl on an absolutely freezing, wind-battered Cape Code shore in February, which is part of why the pictures are so random and not very good. I could barely feel my hands and was trying to move quickly! That is ice, and frozen froth, around the shawl. It was a gorgeous landscape, though, and me, Caro, Pam, and Specs took photos (Pam even did an FO shoot for a sweater! She took off her coat!) before dashing back to the car and the fireplace in our rental house.