Blueberry Shawl

I've been having trouble deciding whether to knit a new sweater using stash yarn or purchasing more Cascade 220 to remake Forecast. And if I do reknit Forecast, what color? (I could always choose to finish a work in progress, but that's never as fun as starting something new!) So I went browsing at A New Yarn which has a decent selection of C220, but not the color of the Japan sweater. They do have a different yarn in the most gorgeous blue (Sapphire in this link, I believe). That would make a wonderful sweater, but it would cost more than twice as much as a C220 version. And infinitely more than knitting a sweater from stash.

So instead I wandered around and looked at the odds and ends. A New Yarn is a non-profit yarn store that raises money for a Women's shelter. They stock some good basic yarns but also take donations. So you never know what odd balls of Rowan or Malabrigo will be scattered around. I found a skein of Shetland in a tweedy blue-purple. It has a really old looking label and the colorway is Blueberry --- not one I can find currently for sale.


It is probably not a coincidence that I chose a blue-purple colorway. Not exactly the same as the Japan Sweater, but pretty close.

In one week it became a Flower Basket Shawl. I chose this pattern because I wanted something I knew would be easy to do without stitch markers since I have kinda lost mine all over the house. I knew the pattern would be easy to memorize and I knew it would be easy to add pattern repeats to maximize using the available yarn.

US 7 addi lace needles
9 pattern repeats
86 grams, 340-350 yards used
blocks to 63 inch wingspan 24 inches deep (could have been blocked deeper with less wingspan as well)