Being a designer, releasing patterns out into the world is a little bit like being a parent.
At some point, after a lot of time and effort you have to release your little darlings out into the world, ready to take on whatever life throws at them and knowing that to some extent, they’ll have to fend for themselves.
And, much like children I don’t think I’m supposed to have a favourite one.
With my kids, obviously I love them both equally and could never choose between them. But with my patterns, I think I’m probably allowed to have a favourite. And if I had to pick a favourite shawl of mine it would have to be this one.
The PPS (Pattern Please Shawl) ticks all my boxes for a fun, wearable design that’s fun to knit.
There’s the name to start with - born of facebook group frustrations when ‘pattern?’ or ‘pattern please?’ crops up with monotonous regularity.
But there’s also the sheer versatility of the kite-shaped design. It starts off with a small number of stitches and increases to give a dramatic chevron effect (if you use stripes). It allows you to play with colour, with mini skeins, with big skeins - really - the world is your knitting oyster.
This version uses two full skeins of sockweight yarn and it’s probably the one I wear most often. The smaller version uses 1 x 100g skein of sock yarn along with a set of mini skeins to give a smaller, slightly skinner shawl but the kite shape ensures that it still has good wrappability. An important characteristic in any shawl.
What makes a good shawl design for you? Is it size, shape, stash-using-ability?
Do let me know in the comments.
