Hidden Meadow
I am not a frequent knitter of shawls, and only have a few shawl designs. One of them is the Meadow Dance Shawl, published over a year ago. The original samples were made in a vibrant fingering weight yarn, which felt right at the time. This Spring I suddenly got a hankering for a more rustic, more muted, more puffy version. When organising my new studio, I was sorting through plates of Nutiden yarn in random colours leftover from sweaters, and saw these three beautiful earthy tones next to each other. I knew immediately they were destined for the Meadow Dance.
The crescent design of this shawl involves knitting acres and acres of seed stitch, followed by a garter stitch border with a floral mosaic colourwork motif. I sped through the main seed stitch section in sage green, then the eyelet transition in blue, then the setup rows in brown… and could not take my eyes from the colour combination. They did not merely work well together; the combination was mesmerising.
Then I began the mosaic. And several rows in, my heart sank. I am usually pretty good at choosing colours with sufficient contrast for colourwork. And with the yarns laid down beside each other, the brown and blue looked very clearly differentiated. But in this particular mosaic motif… well, they weren’t.
It was the middle of the night when I realised this. And what I should have done at that point was, put the shawl aside; then wait till morning and evaluate it in daylight. But I did not have anything else to work on instead, while I fished a very long film I had committed to (anyone else incapable of watching films without knitting?). So I decided to go ahead and finish the shawl. And that way in the morning I would have the complete picture.
When morning arrived, I laid out the shawl outside. The colours were truly stunning together. And I could faintly make out the floral motif. I mean, it wasn't invisible, just sort of blurry. Did I like it? Did I dislike it?
Honestly, I wasn't sure. I was so biased by the combination of these specific 3 colours, that I wanted it to work. But perhaps the reasonable thing to do, would be to reknit the border in a colour combination with more constant.
So I found some alternative colours, and decided to do what I should have done to begin with: Knit a swatch.
Argh. Once you see what the floral motif is meant to look like, you can’t really argue that the original version is very muted. A ‘waste’ of the motif, some might say.
All signs pointed to the fact that I needed to re-knit the border.
And yet, I can’t get over how much I love the original brown and blue. And to honest, I prefer it, despite the faintness of the motif. There is something enchanting about the very faintness of it. That you have to work hard to discover the flowers, as if they are hidden in a thick forest, half-covered with last year’s decomposed foliage. There is a mystery to the earthiness of it.
A hidden meadow.
A secret meadow.
I love it and want to wear it, just as it is.
I wore the shawl through the day, and also held the swatch in my hand, fidgeting with it as if in hopes that it would resolve my conflicted feelings.
And then, it sort of did.
An idea occurred to me… What if I pick up stitches on the underside of the shawl, just above the border, then knit a second border in the high-contrast colour combination, and connect the bound-off edges?
This way, the border will consist of a double-faced fabric, with the brown and blue colours on one side, and the cream and blue on the other?
A double-meadow dance, as it were.
I shall definitely try it - and will add it as an option to the pattern if it works out well and is not too bulky.
pattern: Meadow Dance Shawl
yarn: Höner och Eir Nutiden
