Definition 1 - The Shawls

Before Christmas I had an exciting parcels from British yarn company, Artesano, with five colourways of their new sock yarn, Definition. The yarn is a classic sock yarn blend of 75% superwash merino/25% polyamide, which makes it perfect for socks but also luxurious enough for shawls and garments.

The socks on the cover of 'Definition 1' are my design and one of 2 pairs of socks I designed for this collection - one pair is toe up and one pair is top down. I also designed 2 shawls and a garment. 

I'll tell you about the shawls first. Flora is a crescent shaped shawl which starts with a wide textured lace border and some lace patterning on both sides (on right side and wrong side - a lot of lace only have lace patterning on right side rows), but it's not at all difficult. The crescent shape is achieved by working short rows in garter stitch.

I love this shawl shape. It sits really well on your shoulders and it's quick to knit. This shawl takes one skein of the brand new Artesano Definition sock yarn. Artesano were really generous and sent me more yarn than I needed for the designs so when I've revealed all of my designs for this collection, I'll do a competition. So come back for more soon.

My second shawl is the St Ives shawlette which is another one of my favourite shawl shapes. Again it sits really easily on your shoulders. St Ives is worked from the top down and the shape is achieved by increasing at the beginning and end of the row, inside a lacy edging, and either side of two 'spines' on every other row. If you want to know more about this kind of construction, why not look at my tutorial on half hexagon shawls and on top down triangular shawls.

I had a lot of help knitting all of my designs in this collection. They were commissioned just before we left for Norway for Christmas and the deadline was very soon after we came home so I had 4 excellent knitters who helped me out. Jen knitted the Flora shawl and Leni knitted the St Ives shawl. They both did a great job and I'm very grafteful.

Tomorrow I'll share the two pairs of socks I designed for this collection. In the meantime you can see all the designs  here. The booklet is now available as a pdf download here and will be available as a printed booklet from your favourite Artesano stockist soon. Check out the other designs in the collection too. 

As this is a sock yarn there are several pairs of socks in this collection but as you've seen, this sock yarn is perfect for shawls too and on Saturday I'll share the garment i designed for this collection. There'll be a competition too. I've got some of the gorgeous sock yarn to give away. 

Come back tomorrow and Saturday for more news.