zuni shawl

I’m thrilled to announce that my Zuni Shawl pattern is now available! As I mentioned in my previous post, this design was a long time in the making, mostly because it had to spend a long time tumbling around in my brain while I worked to meet other deadlines. I actually think that all of that ruminating time was beneficial, as I was able to distill my idea down to the simple, strong lines that you see above. And, admittedly, after a couple false knitting starts, it came together beautifully in near-record time for me.

I love one-skein projects, because I have an on-the-go lifestyle, and it’s just much easier to work on portable, easily-contained designs. This shawl uses just one skein of my favorite yarn, Madelinetosh Pashmina as I’m sure I’ve mentioned too many times to count. Honestly, why wouldn’t you want to knit everything in a merino/silk/cashmere blend, right? The “Candlewick” colorway really brought my idea to life, with its varying golden tones and deep color saturation. But I could just as easily see an urban slate gray or a wearable deep navy working here – whatever color floats your boat! The project is worked side to side, so that you can use straight or circular needles, whatever is closest at hand. On the right side of the shawl, there’s a defined labyrinth-like design of garter and stockinette stitches that emphasize the jagged edges of the shawl and give it a modern twist. On the underside of the shawl, the reverse stockinette portions create shadow-like valleys against the garter stitch.

Recently, I’ve been using my gorgeous sister for the final photoshoots, but we were on a bit of a time crunch this time around, as I wanted to get the pattern finalized and released before the big Rhinebeck festival weekend next Saturday/Sunday. So I wrangled my husband into shooting some photos of me up on the roof of our building. Boy did we get lucky with the photos – the sky was a roiling, unusual mixture of thunderclouds and bright sunshine right before sunset, and we shot a bunch of photos that I think capture the atmosphere nicely. Thank goodness for Andrew – I’m spoiled to be surrounded by so many good photographers, because I’m only adept enough to use my camera phone on stationary objects haha!

And a nice outtake to express my relief that we finished with less than 5 minutes to spare before the clouds opened up:

Zuni has had an overwhelmingly wonderful reception on Ravelry in the short time since I’ve posted it, and I’m thrilled that it’s striking a chord with so many people. I hope you enjoy knitting it as much as I did, and I hope it’ll be a favorite of yours, too!

PS: Just got back from a few days in Austin, TX. It was fantastic as usual, and I’ll share a few photos next time.