Essence Shawl launch - Scheepjes YARN The After Party

Here she is!  

The Essence Shawl!

She’s been codenamed “The Onesie” for the past six months by a glorious group of friends who knew I had a commission but not what it was, or what yarn I was using or any detail at all really. It created quite the guessing game for awhile and I think at the last it was a “lacy blanket sized floppy rabbit onesie knit in Secret Garden”.. umm no!

Now I am super excited and so proud to introduce to them, and you,  Essence, and what better way to introduce her than as part of the Scheepjes After Party  series of booklets!.

You may have seen some sneak peaks of it if you get The Knitter magazine.  This ad appeared in the July Issue 113.

As a knitter and crocheter I always play around but have never considered it ‘designing’, it’s just playing and I think many of you can relate to that.  I’ve been test knitting for Canadutch and she and I have become good friends so I am always throwing pictures at her of different things I’ve been playing with.  With a very big shove, and she’s not gentle when she has absolute faith and belief in something as she did with me, she convinced me to submit something to Scheepjes.  It couldn’t hurt, the worst thing that could happen was that I would feel bad at having wasted their time, the best thing was that I might get some invaluable feedback and design and submission advice for the future.   I didn’t consider the BEST thing to be an offer of commission!

As I was building up the courage to submit Essence, Scheepjes had released their promotional pictures for Whirl and I knew instantly that this yarn was perfect for this design.  Whirl hadn’t been released when I received it to knit the sample with.  Now you all know that I am a Scheepjes addict.  Do you have any idea the self control it took to not shout from the rooftops at how delicious this yarn is?  Now six months later it’s a global phenomenon gone viral. At this point I’m not prepared to admit how many of these colourways I actually have!

Unless you’ve been living on the moon you’ll have seen Whirl, it’s everywhere on social media and Ravelry projects.  It’s 1000 meters (yes, three zeros there, one whole kilometre!) of 60% cotton, 40% acrylic in the most glorious colour gradients and its Soft! I mean super soft!  It’s not splitty like a lot of cotton gradient yarns and the colour changes are subtle and very long, unlike the harsh colour changes of other cake yarns. This yarn is perfect for the Essence Shawl, the colour gradients give what is a very simple design some serious WOW factor and the drape of it is to die for.  The choice of colours has something to suit every taste, and with 30 (!) ice cream flavour inspired names, and yet more to be released, it gives a whole new meaning to ‘yummy yarn’.  Essence has been published in the Slice O’ Cherry Pie (753) colourway.

  

With a first commission I had so much to learn and over the next few months I am sure that Tammy thoroughly deserved to be recognised as a Psych Nurse.  She went through it all with me, from squeals and screams of excitement, total self doubt, uncontrollable sobbing because I couldn’t share this with my Mum, panic at not meeting a deadline, if there was an emotion to be felt, I dragged Tammy through it with me.  Without her I wouldn’t be sane but I can’t vouch for her sanity after this experience.

I also needed a test knitter!  I cannot thank Toni Sturrs of BlissfullyCrafted enough for answering my insane panic stricken request to test for me.  I needed someone based in the UK or Europe, someone I trusted in their knitting ability, their ability to be super critical of me and my pattern writing skills if needed, someone who could keep this a secret for however long it took and work to a deadline.  Toni was amazing, often working through the fatigue of a Chrone’s flare up and sharing in the excitement of it all with me.   I was SO excited to see that Toni’s test piece is the one chosen for the photography!  Test knitters put in as much physical work and time as the designer and in this case all her hard work is being showcased beautifully and I am beyond grateful and insanely proud to acknowledge her efforts and share in this with her.

I wanted this design to be super simple.  Something that a beginner knitter just comfortable with their knit and purl stitches could look at and say “YES! I can do that!”.  A more experienced knitter will find that it’s a very relaxing watch tv and knit project.  If Knitflixing is your thing then you’ll love this. With the simplicity of the stitches I wanted something that looked pretty and interesting.  The texture of Essence gives you a simple smooth look on one side and a textured look on the other making it fully reversible.  The pattern is written with a wrong side and right side but there is absolutely no wrong or right way side to wear it. 

I designed this and knit my sample in Blueberry Bam Bam (755) which you can see here, with a 4.00mm needle because I’m a reasonably tight knitter. If you find that your fabric is too loose when knitting it just drop down to a 3.75mm or 3.50mm, being cotton the Whirl is very forgiving when being frogged, tinked, and ripped back in frustration, you can trust me on that.  There really are no rules, your gauge isn’t really going to affect the final shape or outcome and with 1000 meters of yarn you just knit and knit and knit until you’re ready to cast off. The long length and asymmetrical shape of the design with the beautiful drape of Whirl give you so many options in styling Essence.  You can drape it across your shoulders, wrap it tight like a super bulky cowl, or wrap it loosely.  It’s versatile so play with it and come up with your own unique ways to wear it.

You can find the pattern for the Essence Shawl now on Ravelry  for digital download. Digital downloads are available in English, Dutch, German, Swedish, and Spanish .  Don’t forget to add it to your Ravelry favourites. The YARN After Party booklet will be also available at Scheepjes Retailers and is available at Wool Warehouse. 

You can find Whirl at Wool Warehouse* for international and UK shipping and Scheepjes Retailers. 

If you do make the Essence Shawl I’d love to see your pictures so please create Ravelry project pages, post pictures to The Calm Nook Crafts Facebook or your Instagram pages and tag me @thecalmnookcrafts .  You can use  the hashtag #essenceshawl too.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what colours everyone chooses.  Don’t forget to show Scheepjes too when they post their “What’s on your hook today’ post, usually on a Wednesday, on their Facebook page, it’s ok, they like to see what’s on your needles too!

*Affilite link.