Sherilyn – the cherry shawl

Some designs come together relatively quickly, but this wasn’t one of them. Almost four years ago I posted the first photos of a lace shawl in progress (alongwith a brownie recipe I’d forgotten about but now cannot wait to make again – you certainly should!). I did finish the shawl, here’s a photo of it blocking:

However, my design and knitting skills were rather ahead of my pattern writing experience and my attempts at charting the pattern resulted in a headache. If I couldn’t make sense of how to chart a large stitch pattern with a constantly changing stitch count I certainly couldn’t expect any knitter to follow it. And so, I wore my shawl, and filed my notes away under “old patterns in progress”. Last summer I found the shawl in a drawer and went to look at my original chart. After dragging a few things around in illustrator it seemed pretty simple and I set out to find the perfect cherry yarn. I started off with a gorgeous cashmere / silk blend from The Sanguin Gryphon, but we found out not long before the photoshoot that they would be splitting into two companies and that this yarn would no longer be available. Fortunately Cephalopod Yarnstotally came through and dyed up the same deep cherry colour in the popular Skinny Bugga base.

I love showing how different a shawl can look in fingering vs lace weight, especially since they so often work at the same gauge. For the laceweight version I choose the luxurious 2ply cashmere from Jade Sapphire in the colourway Cousin Coral, a vibrant red orange that made me think of cherries at that bright, almost ripe stage.

Do you recognise my lovely models? I accosted Melissa and Claraat Rhinebeck and had them pose for me – I love how many friends ended up in Whimsical Little Knits 3. After modelling for Saturday Treat(we did the photoshoot twice but that’s another story) it was so nice to be on the other side of the lens.

Sherilyn is part of Whimsical Little Knits 3, and I hope you like some of the other patterns in the book too, but if you’re only interested in knitting this shawl I have some good news. It’s now also available as an individual pdf for £3.75.

If I’d known in 2008 that I’d end up waiting for almost four years to see anyone else make it I’d probably have pretended the idea never existed but it was totally worth all of the percolation time. I love this bright green one that IgnorantBliss has already finished!

I can’t wait to see yours! Now, who knows where the name came from and what the connection with the “cherry shawl” working title is?