Stevie Nicks is Looking for an Awesome New Shawl

Stevie Nicks is well known for her bohemian style, flowing clothes and shawls that accentuate her movement on stage, and now she’s looking for a new, handcrafted shawl to use in a photography shoot.

The singer has taken to Talenthouse, a sort of job board for artists, to put out her call for submissions. Interested designers can submit a sketch or a finished shawl as well as a description of why this is the perfect shawl for her.

The winner, who will be chosen by Nicks, will receive $2,000 to help them produce their final shawl, which Nicks will wear in photographs that will be posted on her website and on social media. The shawl will then be returned to the designer.

In her brief for the contest, which was also shared on Rolling Stone, Nicks said she started wearing shawls on stage in the late 1960s.

In 1968, a very handsome boy brought me a poncho from South America. I knew it was magic and that someday I would copy it in chiffon or leather or beaded material. I realized that wearing a poncho or a long shawl gave me something to work with up on the stage. Big movements, big twirls, you need to be seen from far away. So I made that a big part of my stage clothes. It became totally intertwined in my fashion style.

The competition is open through Sept. 22. Participants will also be eligible for a $500 prize based on the community’s choice of favorite shawl. Voting for that honor will take place between Sept. 22 and 29, and the winners will be announced Oct. 14.

[Photo via Talenthouse.]

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I don’t even know what to say about this amazing knitting pattern. The Bestiary Scarf from Monstra & Mirabilia is so full of details it’s a little intimidating to talk about.

It features, as the designer describes it, an “artistic encyclopaedia of Western mythical creatures.”

The pattern includes a dragon, harpy, Medusa, chimaera, centauress, phoneix, kraken, mermaid, sew serpent, cyclops, wyvern, Pegasus, amphiptere and amphibaena. (It’s a good thing there’s a photo of the proejct with everything labelled because I definitely didn’t know the names for everything.) It’s also designed like a landscape, with water and land creatures toward the bottom ends and sky creatures toward the top.

The dragon is at the center and is worked sideways so it will show as upright when you wear it.

The scarf is worked in double knitting, so the colorwork appears in the opposite colors on the other side.

It’s worked in light fingering weight yarn (on size 0 US or 2mm knitting needles) and the colorwork is shown in charts. The pattern also includes some video tutorials and written instructions to help you along. The designer says the pattern is for intermediate knitters, and “advanced beginners may succeed with patience and the help of the video tutorials.”

When I was an advanced beginner this kind of a pattern would have brought me to tears, but if you love a challenge, and a project that you’ll wear and get tons of astonished reactions every time, this is the project for you. And of course if you have a few double knitting projects under your belt and are comfortable reading charts, this project shouldn’t be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. But lots of great things take time, and that’s never stopped us before, right?

You can get a copy of this pattern from Monstra & Mirabilia on Ravelry.

[Photo: Monstra & Mirabilia ]

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