Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl

Dear Mom,
One of the knitting goals I'd set for myself this week was to finish knitting this shawlette.

MelissaWhoSpinsButDoesNotKnit purchased this lovely NightFall yarn at SAFF last month, and in exchange for a delicious home cooked Stir Fry dinner for my family of four, I've had the pleasure of knitting this shawl for her.

The Pattern is Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl. The only modifications I made (and the pattern includes instructions for this) was to increase the body of the shawl to make it a little bigger AND to use up as much of this yarn as possible. The yarn is hand dyed to create this gentle, magical change from light to dark within the skein.

Melissa also brought home some Nightfall sock yarn. Again the colorway works itself from a lighter shade to almost black and the sock yarns are packaged with two identical skeins making it easier to create an identical, rather than fraternal, pair of  socks. Those socks are the next on my list of knitting goals for the week- they'll count as my November socks, and the first of that pair is already finished!

I've added SAFF to my bucket list. After seeing Melissa's show and tell and hearing about her trip, I wondered if I would have noticed this wonderful yarn. I would have been attracted to the color, but may not have taken the time to notice how special it is. I tend to get completely overwhelmed when I shop and can easily shut down to the point of not seeing anything. It's like I need extra time to become acclimated to the sensory overload and to quiet all the ideas in my head that squawk for attention like a nest of hungry birds. On a previous little fiber excursion, Melissa and I discovered that we each gravitate to very different colorways. We helped each other see more of what is really there. While Melissa was disciplined enough to "shop outside her comfort zone" while she was at SAFF, I am pretty sure I would need someone there to physically point out what I was missing.

Keep warm! It is definitely feeling like November out there today!

Love,
Kim