Emberwarm

 

I finished a shawl about a week ago but finally got some photos yesterday - this is Emberwarm, a delightful mosaic stitch pattern that is deceptive. It looks a lot harder than it is! I saw a shop sample on the single yarn-related field trip I've had in many months. One day in July, Kris and I went to the Lancaster Yarn Shop in nearby(ish) Lancaster, PA. We were supposed to attend a retreat there in April which obviously got cancelled. I had some shop credit, and we both had itchy feet, so we took a day trip.

LYS is a small but excellently curated shop. We had such a nice time browsing. Here are the yarns I bought to make Emberwarm:

This pattern would work really well with any yarn with long color shifts paired with a contrasting solid. It would be beautiful with handspun, too. 

The i-cord edging is optional, but you know how I feel about i-cord ("never optional"). However, I quibble with the pattern a bit. I wish I had not bound off the long edge. The pattern tells you to find off AND THEN pick up stitches to work the i-cord. If I did it again, I would just work an i-cord bind-off on the long edge, and pick up stitches for applied i-cord on the other two edges. The binding off and picking up of hundreds of stitches seemed silly.

I also made this shawl a bit bigger than the pattern. I worked an extra pattern repeat (so, 7x not 6x) and then worked rows 1-2 again, to close the diamonds. My blocked shawl is 61" long on the straight edge, and 14.5" deep at the widest point. I'll likely wear it like a scarf. There are some other interesting modifications on Ravelry, if you decide to make this. I like this version that adds stripes and also this one that changes the overall shape and reverses the pattern colors for a striking edge.

Thanks to my human clothesline poles for assistance with the photos!