Once upon a time, before my daughter was even born (we're talking about 8 years ago now), I was working on a new shawl design fit to use some of my handspun gradients. Fortunately, I took sufficient notes on this long-neglected pattern that I was able to recreate it and begin prototype knitting in preparation for publication!
This is Dittany Shawl - inspired by one of the few plants that produce frost flowers in the fall. The main body stitch pattern is a Barbara Walker classic, Frost Flowers, which has lacework on both the right and wrong side of your knitting. The edging is created by dropping columns of stitches to make the lace, and it is ended with a loopy crochet bind off. One of the great things about this pattern is that is sizeable, which is perfect for working with handspun yarns and with gradient skeins! You have complete control over where you start your edging, so you can place it at a color transition but ensure you maximize your yardage which is key for both handspun and gradients.
For my most recent prototype of this shawl, I actually opted to use a progressive series of miniskeins rather than handspun or a gradient skein. Lolodidit has an amazing array of semisolid colorways available on the Lil Lolo Loriginal fingering weight minis. I had a blast choosing colorways that could coordinate and simulate a gradient, and I used the colors of the dittany plant as inspiration for my color selection.
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Additionally, I was able to include two Harry Potter inspired colorways in my selection, which is a Dittany bonus in this project just for me!
I'm quite happy with how this re-knit worked up and I'm currently in the process of knitting another prototype using a gradient skein of lace. I'm going to be looking for test knitters for this pattern soon! You can sign up for my test knitting email list here!