It Started with a Sketch: Valo

This shawl started with two sketches and a brand new color.

Tukuwool came up with two new colors for their fingering-weight yarn over the summer: Valo and Nila. The dirty, murky yellow that is Valo has become one of my favorite colors and combined with gray... the perfect grellow.

I wanted to highlight the gorgeousness of the yellow against the neutral gray and design a really simple shawl with textured accents in contrasting color on a stockinette background.

My first sketch (left) shows I'd already chosen the yarn and color scheme. The basic shape and design elements of the shawl are pretty much there but I'm obviously still undecided on whether there should be an edging to the shawl.

On the second sketch (right) I'm still playing around with the knitting direction but now there's a border in the contrasting color. The colorways Auri (gray) and Valo (yellow) are already locked in. In the end, the final shawl is something between these two sketches: knit from right to left but with a wide eyelet border.

The shawl is easy and fast to knit, and even if I do say so myself, it's pretty darn addictive. Valo makes for excellent TV knitting since there's a lot of stockinette, really simple shaping, and you can't wait to get to the next eyelet stripe. One test knitter even commented she had to take naps during the day because she kept knitting the shawl way past her bedtime!

• On Ravelry: Valo

• Pattern: Valo by Susanna Winter

• Yarn: Tukuwool Fingering, 2 skeins of Auri (main color) and 1 skein of Valo (contrasting color)

• Needles: 4.5 mm Cubics

#knitting #shawl #asymmetric #triangle #Tukuwool #fingering #wool #stockinette #garterstitch #eyelets #stripes #grellow