summer improvisatory knitting

So far this summer, I’ve set up my new and improved studio to include more surface area (the guest bed, lol) for managing freeform projects. These projects love to take up a lot of space when they’re ready to come together, and now I’m prepared for it. But in the summer, sometimes, my attention span is shorter and I’m in and out of town more often, so portable projects with fewer components are what’s called for.

My most recent project and the current one are both asymmetrical triangle shawls based on my new Vacation Favorite pattern. This pattern combines two things that I love: a traditional shawl shape and combinations of yarns and stitch patterns in whatever way suits my fancy as I knit. In fact, my original Vacation Favorite was improvised, I just ended up writing it down in pattern form for publication. But I’ll probably never make another one exactly that way again. Instead, I’ll gather yarns that want to go together and knit them with the stitch patterns that interest me at that moment in time, just as it happened for the first one.

This worsted/chunky weight shawl combines lots of variegated and handdyed yarns, some of them textured. I knitted them with garter stitch, eyelets, seed stitch, blocks of stockinette stitch and reverse stockinette, unorganized feather and fan, and a strip of mitered squares. All of this is loosely based on the Vacation Favorite.

My current Vacation Favorite WIP (work in progress) is knitted with a bunch of handdyed fingering weight mini skeins, and one hank of Baah La Jolla in black. The shawl shaping is consistent, but I’m flying by the seat of my pants when it comes to mixing colors and stitch patterns. I’m using feather and fan stitch again, but I’m keeping it more organized this time. Because each row of the Favorite shawl shape has a different number of stitches, it requires time and attention to make sure the feather and fan shaping lines up like it should (and I think it mostly does). It’s not hard, it’s just fiddly.

These two iterations of the Vacation Favorite result in a completely different looking shawl than the original mostly because I don’t have dedicated main colors and contrast colors. Consequently, there’s no defined background and foreground. Instead, there’s a mishmash of colors and textures, a chaotic blend that might make me a little crazy for a sweater, but I love it for an accessory. Perhaps the best thing about this kind of knitting, though, is that it has a set shape and structure while allowing for making things up as I go along. It’s comfort knitting that allows for experimentation, just right for summer.