Welcome to day 5 of the Migraineur Advent pattern reveal party! Yesterday I uploaded the final file, and pending some administrative flim-flam I don’t entirely understand, I can say with some confidence that the book will be live for ordering by December 15. I’m going to press the button sooner in case it takes a couple of days for it to process, so who knows! Today I’d like to show you the centerpiece of the first chapter, a shawl called Spike.
Spike is a multi-directional knit that starts with a big mitered square, accented with slip stitches down its centre. From there, you will build out on three sides to create an asymmetrical shape to wrap yourself in. While there is a wee bit of slip-stitching, a moderate bit of short-rowing, and the tiniest bit of intarsia, there is a lot of just plain relaxing knitting in this shawl.
The asymmetry of Spike is all about the asymmetry of migraine pain, as I experience it. One side might be feeling as if something is being driven into my head; the other is just along for the ride.
This was the first piece I actually knit up for this collection, and it taught me so much. It’s one thing to conceive of a flat shape and figure out how to execute it in knitting. It’s another thing to drape it on a human body, and in this way, Spike was full of surprises. I especially like how it looks draped with the square over the shoulder. This is how it will lay if you just hold it behind your back with the real centre of the shawl behind you, and give it a wrap.
You can wrap it the opposite way as well, with the edge of the square in front.
But I also like how it looks with the square in front, either squared off as above, or with the help of a shawl pin you can position it with the mitre pointing down.
In addition to two colourways, this shawl also comes in two sizes. The “Rust” colourway is here shown in the smaller shawlette size, without the optional crochet embroidery seen in the “Patina” colourway. Here you can compare their sizes directly; the larger size is not enormous, but a good multi-use shawl.
As I said last time, In this set of accessories, I wanted to play a little bit more fast and loose with colour. In the Rust pieces, for example, the shawl and mitts feature the same two colours, but the hat replaces Horseback Brown with a combination of faded-black Bruce and deep-burgundy Backen. The innate cohesiveness between all the Milarrochy Tweed colours makes this really easy. The same eye for colour is behind all the shades (I got to meet the colour designer herself, Nora, when we visited Donegal Yarns in Ireland), and the flecks of tweed tie the colourways together.
If this accessory set intrigues you, I hope you are looking forward to release day as much as I am! See you next time for another chapter and a very fresh look.
Thank you to Linda Jennings (mom!) for knitting the Rust sample of Spike, and to Rebekka, Marikah, and Akumalik Sanguin for modeling.
Osborn Fiber Studio 