In the beginning of October, I decided to join the Starflake shawl mkal by Stephen West. That was my first Stephen West shawl. The finished object wowed me. 🙂 I bought some beautiful hand-dyed yarn from my friend Daria    and started knitting. It took me 6 months to finish it, but the finished shawl surely worth it. And it’s good to have a big shawl to wrap around when it’s snowing outside (in April!!???).

To be honest, I had some issues with the pattern. First of all I tried the brioche part three times. And I failed due to being not so good at counting brioche.  I am so glad Stephen had a version with garter stitch instead of brioche. But I was confused with the I-cord border in the beginning of every row…when to knit it, when to purl it…Anyway, I chose to alternate knit and purl to make it stockinette, as it looked the prettiest to me that way. It does not affect so much the inside of the shawl with the stars and scallops . Besides that, the shawl is just beautiful and I want to attempt it again, this time with the brioche.

I used 3.75 mm needles and 1.5 skein of orange and 1.5 skein of white, 300 grams of fingering sock yarn. I did not do the last part of the pattern, it was optional, so I have about 100 grams left and I think I’ll make some socks with those pretty colours.

I asked my husband for a quick photoshoot outside. Usually I ask my cousin to post for me, but now due to social distancing, we can’t really meet. So, I had to pose myself with the beautiful Starflake shawl. It was fun to be the model, not the photographer and my husband did a good job for someone who rarely shoots. We may try again 😀