Drool-Worthy Color Cards from Halcyon Yarn

I guess I’ve got Maine on the brain today (wouldn’t it be lovely to be sitting on a deck chair somewhere in Maine, knitting and looking out at the ocean, right about now?) because I’ve been meaning to share this with you for a while and I’m just now getting to it. I’m a big fan of the Maine-based yarn company Halcyon Yarn, and for all the years I’ve been getting their catalogs (which are beautiful and will make you wish you were in Maine even more), I’ve always been intrigued by what they call a Yarn Store in a Box.

This cool sampler includes 45 color cards with more than 115 different yarn styles on them. They include Halycon-label yarns like their Classic Rug Wool, Satin Bamboo (which I am going to have to get some of!) and their Casco Bay line, as well as sames from big-name companies like Noro, Debbie Bliss, Cascade and Reynolds, to name a few.

The people at Halcyon were nice enough to send me a sample box, and it is so much fun to look at all the possibilities and imagine what you’d make form each kind of yarn. For a designer, that’s really inspirational.

I think this box would make a great gift for a knitting friend. In addition to all the sample cards the box includes the company’s yarn and equipment catalogs and a coupon for $10 off your first purchase of $60 or more. Which, when you see all this gorgeous stuff, will take you no time at all to spend!

Sometimes when I’m scrolling through Ravelry a pattern will catch my eye as much because of the name as the look of the design (which is a little hard to see in those little thumbnails sometimes, anyway).

So it was with the Stellify shawl by Paola Albergamo. Stellify means to turn into a star, and the name and the story behind the shawl come from the story of Ariadne. The better known part of her story is that she helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur, but he then abandoned her. What comes after in many stories is that Dionysus found her, fell in love with her and later married her.

When he threw her jeweled crown into the sky, the Corona Borealis constellation was formed.

What does all this have to do with shawl knitting?

The shawl itself looks like it has a scattering of stars on it, as if it, too, has been stellified. The shawl begins with an I-cord tap and is shaped into a triangular shawl with both lateral and central increases. I-cord edging is incorporated into the sides, and the colorwork is done with mosaic knitting, which means this shawl is easier than it looks.

Mosaic knitting has you working with just one color per row, slipping stitches that appear in the other color to make the colorwork visible. Even better for people new to this kind of colorwork, the pattern includes written and charted instructions throughout so it should be easy to follow along.

The pattern comes in two sizes (the larger one is shown here) and calls for two colors of fingering weight yarn. It looks great in black and yellow, but don’t miss the other projects on Ravelry to see other fun and beautiful color options.

You can find the pattern in English and Italian on Ravelry.

[Photo: Paola Albergamo]

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