Merrily We Knit-a Long...

After a long blog dry spell, at last a post. I have not posted much due to a dead camera. I never much care for all text blog posts. Still, this can be done with swiped images.

I have a couple of firsts-- two-fer, in fact. I am FINALLY doing my first Knit-a-Long and Mystery shawl. The shawl is Koi Rama by Kitman Figueroa. Kitman Figeroa is a knitting designer, primarily of shawls, and I have admired her work for quite while now. I have meant to make one of her designs for at least a year and a half, but have been distracted. My Ravelry queue has several of her designs and I even have yarn in my stash.
The picture from the Ravelry design page is this of a carp and a butterfly and is supposed to represent the spirit of the piece. There are no other indicators of what the finished shawl will look like. She gave no clues or swatches, but I have little doubt, based on her other work, that the end result will be pleasing. Kitman also has asked participants to use this image and not post progress pics until the shawl is finished. This project is, indeed, to be a mystery shawl. She announced her KAL a couple weeks ago, and the price to join was discounted for early birds, and being and eternal bargain-hunter, I bit. I am a sucker for a sale and honestly I have wanted to participate in a KAL. Ihave had several false starts, but I have already prepped everything and will cast on after I post this on my blog.

I was fairly certain that I had to have something in my stash that I could use for this and I was right. I bought a skein of Sanguine Gryphon Sappho I laceweight in a colorway called "All Can Be Endured". It was an impulse purchase and I am pleased that I found something I can use it for. I have had a naughty tendency to buy yarn in appealing hand-dyed yarns without having a project lately; this tendency is a really bad habit to fall into, given the current indie dyer choices out there. The skein has 850 yards, so I have a generous amount based on the yarn requirements, although the pattern does suggest that extra yardage might be needed for loose gauge knitters. That would be me.
The colors are all greens and teals with a hint of gold. The knitted swatch is more representative of what my skein looks like. I was wooed by the skein image when I bought the yarn, think the goldy-orange would be more prominent. I must cop to being a tad disappointed when the yarn arrived because my skein had no real orange. It was more gold than orange and the gold was very subtle. For this project, though, I think the colors will work well. It looks like a pond under trees with flashes of gold sunlight and golden koi carp moving in the shadows.

There are optional beads and I chose #8 seed beads in golden topaz to match the color of the yarn. The beads are transparent so the greenish yarn shows through. The beads are strung on, rather than slipped on while knitting via crochet hook while knitting. The shawl doesn't call for a lot of beads. The first clue came Friday and only calls for 204 beads, so they will give a quiet flash rather than drive the piece.

Well, I am excited to start and this shawl will not knit itself. Hopefully, I will have a camera by the time I am done and I will post finished pics. Knit on, baby!