It’s the pull of glorious september, isn’t it? There’s a nip in the air in the mornings but our days here in Touraine are hot and the sunlight is beautiful. I felt the need to make a shawl to wrap ‘round my shoulders against the early morning chill and, yet again, I was drawn to Alana Dakos’s patterns.

You might think the repetitive leaf pattern might become tedious but quite the opposite, I found. I loved knitting each and every leaf and you cannot make a mistake as each of the eighteen rows required to make a leaf has a different stitch count. I did have at the start a small problem understanding the logic of the final row in the leaf pattern which reads: p2tog, bo 5 sts purlwise, p3, p2tog. Please note that the first stitch to be bound off is the resulting stitch from the initial p2tog.

Madelinetosh as usual makes me swoon with pleasure. Pleasurable to work with and very longlasting. The drap on this beautiful crescent-shaped shawl is perfect with this yarn.

Thank you Alana.