So, believe it or not, I do knit from time to time. It’s been a long time since I’ve finished anything though. I did manage a pair of mittens at the end of 2017, but other than that, no time for knitting in 2018 until right before Christmas. I figured it was the perfect time to pick up a project that I had started months before, my Range Shawl. I checked back on my Instagram and I had picked out the yarn for the Range Shawl pattern back in 2016. It was a lofty goal for me back then anyway, but there were quite a few obstacles I needed to jump before working on this project in earnest.

Once I felt that most of the studio stuff was taken care of, I felt a bit of time in the evenings open up. Especially in winter it was where I had time to sit down and work on this shawl. I hadn’t ever made a shawl before. In fact, I hadn’t knit anything flat before either. The big leap for me though was learning brioche. It seemed pretty insurmountable to me with only having a few years and a handful of finished knit projects under my belt. I was determined though, ever since the pattern was released I’ve been dying to make it. So I sat down one Saturday with a winter storm and tried and tried figuring it out! My friend Jeni recommended this video which really helped get a visual on things. The pattern is so clearly written though, too. I look back now and think that it was so much easier than what I had built it up to be. So once I got one brioche section under my belt it felt really great! I did have quite a few times where I made mistakes and had to go back and try and fix. I kept using life lines after each section which was necessary for me!

This was a great project to start learning brioche! Because the shawl is worked corner-t0-corner it helped me by knowing there was only a small section to work on at first. Of course I could have tried using some scrap yarn and practiced, but I jumped right in. I will say though that for the two color brioche it is much easier to see what you’re doing when you have yarns that have more contrast. My first section of brioche didn’t have as much contrast so it was a bit harder to learn that way. I do love the way the colors transition though.

I ran out of my one color of yarn, but luckily it was enough to do one repeat in the tweed section. I don’t think it’s too noticeable and I really could care less that it doesn’t follow the pattern exactly. I ended up doing an extra repeat of the other tweed section instead.

I feel so excited and proud about finishing this shawl! It feels like such a big accomplishment in my knitting. It took me from the end of December until the end of February to knit, just a bit of time each night with a few longer spurts in between.

Pattern: Range Shawl by Andrea Mowry of Drea Renee Knits
Yarn: Tosh DK in Celadon and Silver Fox by Madelinetosh, Trusty in Overcoat by Plucky Knitter, CFC Merino Worsted in Cenote by Camellia Fibers Co.