Pattern Release: Mirit

Before those of us in the United States spend the next few days gorging ourselves on delicious food and then shopping until we drop, I thought I'd drop a little surprise on you -- a new pattern!

To date, Leventry has been far and away my most popular pattern, but it's also a very sizable shawl, and I know that many people prefer to knit smaller shawlettes. So for quite a while I've been thinking about what it might look like at a smaller scale and perhaps with some variation in the pattern. That reimagining led to the pattern I share with you today, Mirit.

Like Leventry, Mirit is worked from the top down, starting with a garter tab, and begins with two-color stripes. This time around, however, garter stitch is the more prominent stitch in the main body of the shawl, so there's much more texture. The lace band near the bottom is similar, but the top and bottom edges of the lace section are straighter because the decreases are right and left leaning rather than centered. And the dominance of the colors is a bit different in Mirit as well. In Leventry, what could be thought of as a contrast color formed both the garter ridges and the lace; here, the color used for the lace is almost in the background of the stripes, so there's a lot of color and texture interplay in this shawl.

The main difference between the two is in the amount of yarn used and the resulting size. Mirit uses roughly 600 yds./549 m (split evenly between the two colors) and blocks out to a finished size of approximately 48 in./122 cm wide along the top edge and 22.5/57 cm deep at the center. This is a shawl that will sit nicely on your shoulders or around your neck and tuck easily into your coat.

I absolutely loved the yarn I used to knit the sample, Quince & Co. Finch, a springy, bouncy, round American wool. I used Damson (the brown) and Glacier (the blue) for my sample and needed a bit more than a skein of each. The yarn was a delight to knit with and is, I think, a fairly economical choice, especially compared to some of the beautiful hand-dyed yarns that so often call my name. If stripes aren't your thing, you might consider knitting the shawl in handspun or a yarn with long color repeats for an interesting effect.

I hope you enjoy this shawl as much as Leventry, and as an added bonus, if you've already purchased Leventry (or if you haven't and want to buy them both together), you'll get an automatic discount when you add Mirit to your cart. You will need to be on Ravelry for that to work, I believe, so keep that in mind before clicking the button below.


 

If you're in the States, I hope you have a great Thanksgiving! If you're elsewhere, enjoy the rest of your week!