At the tail end of 2018, I was on a high from releasing my first pattern, Aunt Maggie, and didn’t want the momentum to stop. I set out to design my first shawl.
My first stop was Craftsy. I knew absolutely nothing about designing shawls so I decided my best bet was to work through Knit Shawl’s 14 Ways with Laura Nelkin. It was really educational in all about shawl shaping and design. I really enjoyed it and it was super helpful in this venture.
There were so many options, but I decided on starting with a crescent shaped shawl. And of course, my love of Garter stitch added a lot to my design planning. I actually swatched quite a bit for this piece to make sure I got the start and finish of the cable looking exactly the way I wanted.
I wanted the line of cables to start and terminate with the fewest number of stitches possible. This meant the cable closely resembled a leaf shape. The shape reminded me of an Ash Tree Leaf – hence the pattern name.
In true Shilo fashion, I couldn’t decide on which yarn weight I preferred. That’s how we ended up with both Ash and light Ash. They are essentially same shawl with different math worked for the different yarn weights.
I really love them both and couldn’t be happier with the way they turned out. Both are still available in my Ravelry Story and on Etsy.
