I had been eagerly awaiting my copy of Laine Publishing’s 52 Weeks of Shawls book. I purchased their 52 Weeks of Socks book last year, and it is an absolutely beautiful collection with gorgeous photos and loads of wonderful sock patterns. I fell in love with Laine’s particular nordic/minimalist/rustic vibe and when they announced there would be a shawls book, I gladly handed over my cash to The Woolly Thistle and preordered a copy.
It arrived yesterday and it is WONDERFUL! Loads of beautiful shawl/stole patterns all presented with gorgeous photos and a beautiful layout. The Laine publishing folks pulled together the perfect balance of some easier pieces and some more complex ones, all presented with a minimal rustic aesthetic I adore. I’ve already put a lot of these in my queue, and I suspect I will be casting on sooner rather than later for several.
While I won’t list all the ones that made it into my to-be-knit queue, I’ll highlight a few of them here for you. (All images below are copyright Laine Publishing from the pattern’s Ravelry page.)
Deer Scarf by Maria Mateeva (Ravelry link)
This is, I think, at the top of my list. It’s a super generous “scarf”, more like a stole in size, with a rib and cable pattern. It’s knit in fingering-weight yarn and I’d love it in a soft natural-colored fawn wool to scrunch up around my neck in colder weather.
I’m also eyeing Venus by Marion Em Knits (Ravelry link):
Another generously sized shawl with a striking floral motif on a bed of garter stitch. It’s knit using a fingering-weight single and mohair/silk laceweight held together for a light and airy shawl. I love the soft neutral it’s shown in here, but I think it’s a design that would hold up to pretty much any color you might pick, and could even work with some of the paler speckled indie-dyed colorways out there. So pretty!
Finally, another one knit with fingering-weight + mohair/silk laceweight, but to form chevron stripes is Stiperstones by Johanna Herriot (Ravelry link).
I’m intrigued by the unique construction of this and the overall texture of it. I actually was thinking of picking a gradient set of sock yarn for the base and letting the colors shift subtly throughout. I have some candidates for that treatment in mind from stash too!
Will I get to every shawl in this book I want to make? Probably not but it is fun to plan and dream about all the gorgeous projects in this collection. Well worth the cost IMHO since there are likely 15 or so I’ve short-listed out of the book and it’s a wonderful piece of eye candy as well to enjoy flipping through for the photos alone. I’m not sure if the plan is to release all of these as standalone patterns but they did do that for their 52 Weeks of Socks collection, so if your bookshelf space or budget space is limited, or if you prefer PDF patterns, that might be an option in the future too.
Knit One, Spin Too 