Pattern Release: Leventry

When I'm working on a pattern, often I'm so excited about it that it becomes my favorite design. However, this time, I think this really may be my most favorite of all the things I've designed to date. Meet Leventry:

Leventry started as my personal design challenge for Mad May in the Ravelry Madelinetosh Lovers group. I had picked up two skeins of tosh merino light at my LYS when they announced they were going to stop carrying all madelinetosh yarns and pickings were starting to get slim. These two colors -- Rain Water and Nassau Blue -- just seemed to want to go together. At that point, I had an inkling of what I wanted to do, but the idea wasn't fully fleshed out yet.

In the meantime, I designed my Corbusier Socks and because really enamored with the way lace and ribbing can play with each other. I wanted to see how that combination would work out on a larger scale, so I decided to use it in the band of lace at the bottom of the shawl.

The lace had real texture because it is not stockinette based, so I decided to play up that feature in the rest of the shawl. The lighter color already pops against the darker background, so I emphasized it by doing those stripes in garter stitch. And, to finish the shawl, I added more texture with a picot bind off done on the wrong side. I won't lie, it does take a bit of time to finish that last row, but I love the end result.

As lace shawls go, I think this is a pretty easy one. It's worked from the top down, starting with a garter tab. The top portion is all stockinette and garter, with directional m1's for the increases. The lace portion is both charted and written, and I think (and my testers have confirmed) that it's a fairly intuitive pattern. The only stitches used in the lace are knit, purl, yarnover, and a centered double decrease, so there are no crazy maneuvers to be done.

To knit this shawl, you'll need two skeins of fingering weight yarn. I've estimated roughly 400-420 yds., but my testers have used a bit less; I had leftovers from my two skeins of TML. The finished shawl is a nice size for wrapping around you -- roughly 60.5 inches wide and 30 inches deep. It could easily be adapted to a lighter or slightly heavier yarn.

I really couldn't be happier with how this shawl came out, and I've been so touched by all the positive comments I've gotten on it on Ravelry. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!