Interweave Knit.Wear Spring 2012 Preview

I was incredibly excited when I first saw the preview of the spring 2012 issue of Knit.wear from Interweave. I was fortunate enough to have a design in the premier issue of knit.wear last autumn and I was very excited when Eunny Jang, the editor of Knit.wear, commissioned a design for this issue.

'Amala' is knitted sideways and starts with just a few stitches in one corner, the edging along one side is knitted along with the body of the shawl. The triangular shape is achieved by increasing on every other row and the edging along the second side is worked in to live stitches at the end.

'Amala' was knitted in Wollmeise Twin and I knitted the blue sample last summer during our church's Bible Week. I knitted on it during every service and by the end of the week it was finished. It was a very addictive knit and very relaxing with all the garter stitch, perfect to knit when you can't concentrate fully. This would make the ideal travelling companion this summer.

The purple version was knitted by Pixie in my own Organic Merino. The Organic Merino has less meterage per skein than the Wollmeise so this shawl is a bit smaller.

Sarah and Vanessa (with the blonde hair) modelled the shawl for me before i sent the blue version off to Interweave. I've still got the Organic Merino version and it makes a great scarf in the winter or something to warm your shoulders on chilly summer days.

The pictures of Sarah were taken last August on a very hot, summery day (although it looks more wintery in the pic above with her coat on) at Seaton. The pictures of Vanessa were taken on Bodmin Moor at The Hurlers near Minions.

We had a bit of a windy day and struggled to get pics that didn't look windswept.

You can see the Hurlers in the background. It's a stone circle, kind of like a mini version of Stonehenge.

I'm not sure when this issue will hit the shops but I think it's very soon. I can't wait to see this issue, it looks great and i'm so honoured to be featured alongside some great designers.

Information below added on 7 June:
It's easy to customise the size of this shawl if you have a sock yarn that has  different yardage from the original. For the Organic Merino sock (purple) version I used 400m and did 33 pattern repeats. To customise the size I recommend working up a swatch of five repeats of the edging and weighing it to see how much yarn five repeats takes. Then divide by 5 to get yarn weight for one pattern repeat for the edging. You will be working the same number of repeats of the edging only along the 'finishing/cast off' edge as you did along the body of the shawl. So if you work 33 repeats of the edging before you get to the 'cast off' edge, you will work 33 repeats along the cast off edge. Use the yarn weight per edging repeat to work out how much yarn you need to reserve for the final edging.