When I was a child, I was a voracious reader. To some extent I still am, I just have less free time, I think. Back then, I read everything I could get my hands on, requested books for all gifts and begged to be taken to the library. I spent entire weekends in my room, cruising through a stack of books.
Some of my favorite things to read were those "Choose your Own Adventure" books. I loved going back and forth and figuring out all of the possible ways that the story could end. It satisfied my longing for more and more tales and felt like a great bargain to me, with multiple stories for the price of just one book. I guess I've always struggled to stay within my hobby budget.
I recently discovered that they are still making some books like this and tried to get my son and my nephew hooked on these adventures. I'm not sure it stuck, but I was excited by my find, nonetheless.
It was shortly after these little discoveries that I was drawn back to a pattern I released five years ago, the Snowden shawl. Answering a knitter's questions, I realized I could do a much better job of showcasing this cable pattern now that I have several years of pattern writing experience.
I find it a real challenge to make the same thing more than once, so with a re-knit on the horizon, my mind wandered a bit, and I began to wonder what these cables might look like in a lighter weight yarn. I went into the stash and found a couple of skeins of The Plucky Knitter Traveler Sport weight in her Two Hearted color, and wound them up. This yarn is one of my favorites, and this beautiful deep red is an amazing, eye grabbing color, so I was really excited about the project.
Previously, the pattern and shawl body were worked a in one piece, which required some short rows and other fiddly techniques to make it all work out. It worked, but it certainly wasn't tv knitting. When I reimagined it, I decided to work the shawl edging first, then pick up and work the shawl body, which eliminated so many of these challenging bits.
While working the edging, at one side you create a faux I-cord detail that keeps things laying nice and flat, in the middle there is the sweeping cable pattern that is intuitive and easily memorized, and at the opposite edge, you create a yarn over line of stitches where the shawl body is picked up later. There are more details in the pattern, but you just make the edging to the desired length, between about 72 inches and 90 inches, then bind off.
The yarn over detail takes all the guess work out of picking up stitches when it is time to work the shawl body; that part where you decide to pick up 3 out of every 4, and then the numbers don't work and you have to try again won't happen with this shawl. You simply put each yarn over loop on your needle as instructed and you will have the right stitch count, without any trouble.
Once you have all of your stitches on for the shawl body, it is worked back and forth using short rows and decreases to create a slight crescent shape. The short rows aren't hard at all, since there are no wraps that need to be picked up, just work to the stitch noted, then turn your work and work back the other way. Other than in the first couple of rows, there is no need to count stitches or check your stitch counts against the pattern, making this the perfect project for evening knitting in front of the tv.
In the end, I really love the way my adventures worked out with this pattern, both in the sport weight version I started out with, and in the Bulky Weight version I worked with The Plucky Knitter Snug in the Medieval color. Each shawl has an entirely different feel: one for cold winter days, where I can't get enough layers, and one for a little light layer in the cool evenings of spring or fall. This is definitely a pattern I could knit several times without feeling a need to change anything other than yarn weight and color. My next one may be with a solid edging and a coordinating speckled body like a test knitter did.
So, are you interested in choosing your Snowden Shawl adventure? I have a couple of ways you can save. First, use the code ChooseYourAdventure on Ravelry to save 20%. This sale price runs through the end of the day on May 11, 2017.
Second, you can pick up this pattern in a bundle along with Faethe, which has the same choose your own adventure possibilities, for just $6 with the code AdventureBundle on Ravelry. This sale price runs through the end of the day May 7, 2017. Following that, the bundle price will be $8 and the single pattern will be $5.