FO: Heart Flower Shawl

Finally! The photos of my new favourite - the Heart Flower Shawl - are here!

I started this project back in January inspired by Christel Seyfarth's design and technique, but with the desire to make my own (truly) unique shawl and not least use my own yarn since I have so much of this supersoft/shetland/highland wool (I acquired quite a lot of that back in January - and before/since). Along the line followed some improvements to the border construction compared to the original shawls - very cleverly suggested by my mum and then tested by me.

I used the heart/flower pattern from these mittens that I found on Ravelry and combined it with the diagonal lines of Christel's Kornblomst Shawl although with just a single stitch in the lines as I prefer that look. It was my mum's idea to put the hearts on the border, too.

The colours for the heart flower pattern are a palette of reds, pinks, and oranges (yes, I do have a lot of those!) while the background comprises various blues with a bit of yellow, purple, and grey. For the border I used a very dark grey (graphite) for the background - I found pure black too 'hard'. I used 29 different colours in total! All the same type of wool from 3 different mills (marketed under 5 different names). I've become quite adept at spit splicing (with water, though)!

So, what's so special about the border construction? Well, it's knit all in one and in the round - perfect for colourwork! It does require quite a few circular needles of the same size to manage these 1000+ stitches, but luckily I have quite a lot in 3.5 mm and used five of them here (2 long ones, 3 shorter ones). During my summer vacation I made small samples to see what sort of increases were required at each corner to make it work and came up with the following: For the point at the bottom of the triangle, I increased one stitch on either side of the center stitch on each round. For the points at the sides (top of the shawl) I increased one stitch on each round on the side of the center stitch that forms the top border and two stitches on each round on the side towards the side border. I hope this makes sense? After turning the hem with a purl row I did similar decreases on the back. I of course made sure to place the heart pattern on the border so that it fits nicely around the in-/decrease lines (not possible where 2 stitches are increased on the same side of the center stitch, though). The border is bound off normally and sewn to the back making sure to match it stitch by stitch with the picked up stitches (I didn't pick up stitches along the top - there I just kept the live stitches). I also decreased the stitch number across the top border a bit to avoid the convex upper border that I've seen on some shawls with this construction. You can see what it ends up looking like here:

I am of the opinion that large shawls need tassels; tassels just make them that much more fashionable. I attached the tassels with an i-cord using Britt's tutorial - it looks great.

Pattern: My own, but many other shawls of this kind exist. You can read all my many notes on my Ravelry page. 

Yarn: Blackhill Højlandsuld, Júnik Supersoft, Holst Garn Supersoft, Isager Highland Wool, and BC Garn Shetlandsuld. All the same type of yarn. 330 g in total. My Ravelry page states which colourways I used in case you're interested.

Needles: 3.5 mm.

I haven't actually measured the shawl, but you can get an indication of the size from the first photo (I'm 5' 6" / 168 cm).

It was a pleasure to knit - colourwork isn't all that bad once you get the hang of it!

Conclusion: What's not to love?!