Akimbo

Recently, I cast off another store sample for Yarnia. I made Akimbo since we carry most of Stephen West's patterns in our shop. All of his patterns are fabulous. This is the second one I've made (the first was Botanic) and it is well written and well charted.





The pattern calls for a fingering weight yarn, but I made mine is a DK to give it some more weight/size. I created the yarn at Yarnia. The main color is one strand of spice colored silk, two strands of pumpkin colored wool, and one strand of variegated cotton that changes from Dijon yellow to spice to rust to brown. The contrasting color is one strand warm brown alpaca, one strand reddish brown wool, one strand cold brown rayon, one strand warm brown rayon, and one strand cold brown silk.



I used size 6 needles instead of size 4 because of the heavier yarn I chose. The shawl grew about 20% after blocking which was surprising, I didn't expect plain garter stitch to grow so much.



This was a really fast knit, it only took me so long because I was mostly working on it in Yarnia when things were slow. Right now it's on display there to help give people some fall/winter knitting inspiration. It will come back to live with me in the Spring.



I would definitely recommend this pattern to anyone who wants to try a basic triangular shawl without also having to keep track of a lace pattern, or someone who likes to be warm, but doesn't like the look of lace at all. I am anticipating knitting many more of Stephen West's great patterns.