Live Near St. Louis? Are You Ready for a Yarn Crawl?

Back in April Yarn Crawl LA got a lot of attention for bringing together nearly 30 shop owners and offering people who visited the shops during the crawl freebies, discounts and prizes. now the middle of the country is getting in on the fun with the Summer’s Last Blast Yarn Crawl in the St. Louis area, running between July 26 and 29.

This yarn crawl will straddle the border, with shops in Missouri and Illinois participating (10 in all). The first 50 customers at each store will get a free zippered notions bag made for the event, and there are all sorts of prizes including yarn from Alchemy and Rowan, Japanese seed beads and more.

Participants can download a passport showing the locations that will allow them to collect stamps during the yarn crawl. People who get at least six stamps are eligible for prizes and those with 10 stamps are in the running for a bigger prize package.

Have you ever done a yarn crawl? Spill it!

[Photo by Summer’s Last Blast Yarn Crawl.]

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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