Stephen West knitting

This great yarn shop here, Loop, is constantly having great knit designers in for events. They are often book signings, classes, trunk shows, casual knit-and-greets or even all of the above. I really look forward to seeing what classes the guests are offering particularly since they tend to be more specialized or advanced. The problem is that I can never make it to them! I was out of town for Jared Flood's (aka Brooklyn Tweed) classes, had my son's 4th birthday parties during Anne Hanson's (of Knitspot) advanced lace knitting class (I nearly cried over this one!) and on and on. So I was happily surprised when I saw that Stephen West was coming to Loop and I actually can make his advanced shawl workshop!

I've been working on two of his shawl pattern now and just finished one this week.

Herbivore

I knit this one with Malabrigo sock in the Impressionist Sky colorway. I had such a hard time picking which yarn to use for this pattern. It looks great in really varied colors too, but in the end I wanted to highlight the texture of the twist rib stitches and went with a semi-solid.

Raveled here

The Malabrigo is so light and soft, it drapes so well. I'm with my son here enjoying an outdoor lunch in the city.

Daybreak

Another one that is incredibly hard to pick yarn for! It seems to look great in just about every yarn combination - colors that are similar, light/dark, contrasting solids, semi-solids, one solid and one high variegated.... Options overload! The combination I finally decided on is made to match my raincoat.

I'm a bit further in now than when I took this picture, but still about half way to go.

I actually did my first of Stephen West's patterns back in February -- the Colonnade shawl, another fun design.

I'm looking forward to the class!