Last year, I was going through the Dark-Hunter series of books, and at some point my favourite character, the Simi, was wearing pink and black striped socks. I thought that would be a good idea to spin and knit a pair like that, and I wanted to try spinning a superwash merino/tencel blend, so I ordered some of that custom dyed by FiberOptic. I asked her for fiber alternating zones of pinks, black and grays. When the fiber arrived here, I thought it was so shiny it just kept screaming LACE at me. I didn't want striped lace, though, so I broke the top, separating the colours, and spun the pieces in order of light to dark.
It looked like this:
It ended up like this:
And then I had to choose what to do with it. I remembered how, in one scene on Dance with the Devil, Simi appears with black and blue wings, and I imagined them with wing tips being the darkest part. I chose the Lutea pattern, from Oceanwind Knits (Rav-link here), and modified it to maximize the yardage I had.
My favourite little detail of this pattern is the knitted-as-you-go leafy upper border:
But I absolutely love the Lotus Lace on the center, and the way it looks round and fluid and angular at the same time:
It took me a little calculation and charting paper to jump from Lotus Lace to the final border:
And honestly, this picture came out at a weird angle but I just can't get enough of this shawl:
And I haven't pointed out yet, but did you notice how SHINY it is? The Simi likes SHINY!
It came out huge, too, but I fail at using the timer and the focus at the same time for modelled pics, so here's a night pic with the webcam:
I think it's pretty even in the dark.
I'm imensely proud of this shawl, because it's the most hands on work I've ever done. Both the spinning and the knitting took a lot of planning, and except for the fact that it's bigger than I expected, which means better than I expected, everything else came out exactly as I wanted. I love my Simi shawl.
