The Wake Shawl Will Keep You Awake Knitting Until It's Done

I always try to be principled, stick to my guns and buy a sweater's worth of yarn when I splurge. But sometimes, pesky magnetizing skeins like this come along.

This is Timeless Tweed by Easyknits.co.uk. To be honest, the tight spun superwash merino was like any other hand dye, but what grabbed me by the hair and yanked me back was the 15% Donegal Tweed. Who puts tweed in a superwash fingering yarn?! Mmm, someone I love.

I succumbed to this lovely skein in Purl City Yarns (Manchester, UK) after a visit to the Rowan Mill in Holmfirth. I was a good girl about something at least, and also bought a sweater quantity of this.  ;)

A 400 yard skein of yarn languishes in a Dayana Closet. As in, you can only really make a shawl with it, and there are no hooks in that closet, just shelves for sweaters! I had to wait for the perfect little project, and it took a year before designer Kephren Pritchett was testing just the thing I needed: the Wake Shawl. It's named after the wake behind a boat.

You can see what she means compared to my photo from the back of a boat touring around the island I live on in Maine.

(That's Egg Rock Lighthouse in the distance, here it is up close.)

The wake is formed by increasing with yarn-overs every discrete number of rows. Actually, I couldn't predict when the next wake would come, I like that it kept me guessing.

I followed everything to the letter, but if I were to do it again, I'd try to expand that middle section wider... it's the part I really love.

I would also knit more rows (I did the smallest size) because I find it can slip off my neck.

I've been playing with a new photo set-up! I found this ridiculously cheap light set on Amazon, I highly recommend buying one if your best wall is dark.

The Wake Shawl is part of a group of designs with a watery theme, you can buy the Knitting on the Beach e-book here. Kephren keeps adding shawls to it, so buy now and you'll get whatever's left in the collection for free. My next one will be the beautiful Current.

See my Wake on Ravelry

AND NOW FOR A HOUSE UPDATE!

I thought I'd show you a bit of my new screened porch. It is made of orangey douglas fir and corrugated tin roofing. Alas, this furniture lasted about a week before we had to tarp it up for next year. (Reminds me of finishing mittens when summer starts).

To maximize our view of the lea below we decided to add some plexiglass.

That was fall, and now, without the leaves, we are extending the deck completely.

This other end will be a mud room. Right now you open the door straight into the house and lose all your heat in 12 milliseconds!!

Fingers crossed it is ready for the winter.

In other news, I started my new job as Social Media Specialist at The Jackson Laboratory on Nov. 2 and it really has been occupying most of my mind and time! It's the first job I've had that is so fast-paced, it's a game changer.

Don't worry, KNITTING NEVER STOPS. I've got two sweaters done to show you. Stay tuned!

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