Mergoum Shawlette Pattern

I released a new pattern Friday, the Mergoum Shawlette.

FINISHED SIZE
51 in (130cm) wide (tip to tip)
17.5in (45cm) deep (neck to point in back)

YARN

 400 - 450 yards (366 - 411 m) fingering 

$5.00

Mergoum is a one-skein (about 400 yds), fingering weight shawlette, knit from side to side. I knit the sample out of Knitted Wit superwash merino fingering in the Azurite color. This is wonderful yarn! A beautiful color with gentle gradations in the darkness of the blue, oh so soft, and just a pleasure to knit with.

The pattern is suitable for the beginning lace knitter and includes both charted and written instructions. 

The name Mergoum comes from my inspiration for this shawlette. Last Wednesday I posted about my WIP, a lace shawl inspired by the geometric motifs in this carpet:

Mergoum is a term for this type of woven carpet. 

I love my complicated shawl with lace all over, but realized not all knitters share my love for continually referring to charts and counting stitches. The Mergoum is a simpler version, using the same diamond motif along the edges but with a stockinette interior.

Between the stockinette interior and the purl rest rows, it's a fairly easy knit. 

I'm really happy with the way this came out, and, luckily, others seem to share my opinion. It's getting lots of favorites and queueings on Ravelry. It's fallen way down now, but yesterday it even made Ravelry's "Hot Right Now" list. Did you hear my squee of excitement when I saw this?

Yesterday was also the first day of an Introduction to Lace class I'm teaching at my LYS, Stash. I'm using this pattern in the class. Yesterday we covered the stitches required: k2tog, ssk, lldd (left-leaning double decrease), rldd (right-leaning double decrease), and cdd(centered double decrease). The students' homework this week is to practice the stitches and do a gauge swatch. Next week they'll start their shawlettes. 

This is the first time in a long time I've tried to teach anything and I enjoyed it. I'd forgotten that I like to teach. I used to do a lot of it in the high tech industry and I liked teaching as a change from my hardware design work. It was a chance to spend more time with people, as opposed to sitting at a terminal in my cubicle. My students generally said I was really good at it.

Most of my knitting teaching has been informal, teaching friends how to knit. I think I'd like to try teaching more knitting classes. If the rest of the class goes well I'll have to propose a few more class ideas to my LYS.

WIP Wednesday

Tami's Amis WIP Wednesday

I'm currently knitting this lace shawl from Huckleberry Knits BFL lace in the colorway Colleen. I love this yarn - it's soft and just the most vibrant tonal shades of green, much better in person than this not-so-great photo. The shawl is my dissertation for Nerd Wars Tournament 5. It's going to be similar to this worsted weight one I knit from Brown Sheep Naturespun last winter:

I'd hoped to make a bigger shawl then, but ran out of yarn. I was sure I had a second skein of the Nature Spun, but I didn't. Both were inspired by this rug I bought in Tunisia while visiting my brother who was living there.

I just love the geometric designs and hope they make as lovely a shawl as they do a rug.