Caffeinated

Remember six months ago when I finished the Caffeinated shawl? No? Well, I’m not surprised. I didn’t say much about it and didn’t even get around to photographing it until today. Blame it on this crazy year.

Despite the delay, I am stoked about this shawl. The minute the pattern came out I knew I had to knit it. I love the graphic elements and the combination of double knitting and brioche.

The pattern isn’t the easiest to follow, but once you figure out what’s going on in each section and get into a groove, it’s a lot of fun to see the different kinds of stitches build on each other. Besides the double knitting and the regular two-color brioche, the designer has included a big section of alternating brioche stripes. You can see it in between the caffeine and dopamine molecules above. For this part, you work one whole row (right and wrong side) with one color and then switch to the other color. I really like the effect.

An added plus is that I think this shawl is going to be exceptionally easy to wear. I wondered about this for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it seemed like the double layer of fabric might affect the drape and make the shawl feel bulky and unmanageable. Add to this the fact that the FO isn’t particularly big so you don’t have long ends to wrap and tie to get the adjustment just right, and I had the tiniest suspicion that this might be something I enjoyed looking at more than actually using.

I’m so happy to be wrong! The asymmetrical crescent shape hugs my shoulders beautifully.

I threw this on with no mirror and didn’t adjust it once before Paul took these pictures about halfway through our day. It stayed put with one little flip of the ends.

In other news, this has been quite a summer. The minute school was out, we left for Texas to spend some time with my mom. While we were on the way down, we learned that a dear friend had suffered a massive heart attack on vacation and passed away. I still can’t believe it.

After we got back to Tennessee, I dove into teaching at an intensive summer institute, and the day before that was set to wrap up, my sweet Daddy had a stroke. Thank heavens, he’s doing better than ever now, but there was a week or two when things were pretty scary.

We got to enjoy a wonderful visit from close friends we don’t see nearly enough of. There was even knitting!

 

And then the week before last, we got the sad news that my cousin Mark had passed away. He had been fighting Multiple Systems Atrophy for years, so it wasn’t unexpected, but that didn’t make it any less sad.

Daddy and I drove to Memphis for the funeral, and I took this picture during one of the in-between times. Daddy napping, me knitting . . .

So life is life. As always, I am beyond grateful for the comfort and peace that knitting offers and for the wonderful community of knitters I’m so lucky to be part of. Thank you for reading, my friends. Though I have been behind with commenting, I have been keeping up with everyone’s posts. They have been rain in the desert. Thank you!

12 Comments

  2. Nicky
    Reply

    Oh lady … talk about a mixed bag! Sending you tight hugs from the East coast, continued prayers that your dad will continue to do well and just all round best wishes. <3

    Lovely shawl btw … you already know that I think it's a beauty!!!

  5. handmade habit
    Reply

    Big hugs to you from Chicago, Melinda – I’m so sorry to hear of the loss of your friend and cousin, as well as your father’s health scare. I very much hope that his health continues to get better with each day, and am sending good thoughts toward that end. <3 🙂 And you've made another gorgeous shawl! It's got so many lovely details and textures and some really interesting colourwork on the molecules! You are truly the shawl queen! Bravo! 🙂

    • melinda
      Reply

      Thank you, thank you for the hugs and good thoughts, Shirley!! I know they will help. 😊 I’m so happy you like the shawl! It’s funny–there was a time when I couldn’t imagine wearing a shawl. It was hard to see how it wouldn’t be in the way and be more trouble than it was worth. Now, I can’t imagine cool weather without one! Hope you are doing well. Thank you so much for reading and commenting! ❤️

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