This shawl was designed and knit up in a frenzy of a few lovely days! I needed a simple squishy enjoyable mustard shawl to knit. I find that every 6 months or so this overwhelming, uncontrollable, beautiful urge washes over me to knit up a giant mustard shawl. This is the shawl resulting from that urge. And of course, I’ve been finding myself so drawn to drop stitches the past few months, I decided to keep it very simple and just have them cascading down the shawl with increasing rows of garter ridges in between them.

A lovely quick satisfying, very wearable knit!

As for the name, “Fox wedding” is a term I heard for the first time after I had taken these photos of Nicola wearing this shawl out in a sun shower. I was texting my mum and showing her these shots, saying “of course it rained and the sun shined during our photoshoot!” and my mum said that another term for sun shower was fox wedding!

The mental image was so striking to me I knew I had to know more, a quick trip to wikipedia told me more about the term (and the terms like it!).

“A sunshower or sun shower is a meteorological phenomenon in which rain falls while the sun is shining… In Japan, it is known as “Kitsune no yomeiri”, or “the kitsune’s wedding”, and means a fox’s wedding ceremony is being held.“

It was gorgeous and strange and eerie and lovely and a bit of a struggle but very rewarding - all the things I like in a shoot!

As for always and forever and ever, if you find yourself low on funds please don’t hesitate to email me (softsweaterknits@gmail.com) with your username and pattern request and I’ll be happy to gift a copy of this or any of my for-pay patterns to ya!

Thank you to Nicola Hodges for modelling and thank you to April Ridgeway for tech editing!

Some folx have messaged me wanting some clarification on “dropping the YOs” and if that instruction includes the Yarn Over in the KYOKs along the edges of the shawl. It doesn’t include the YO in the KYOK. just the plain YOs are to be dropped :)

Yarn:

3 skeins of Misti Alpaca Tonos Chunky yarn in colourway “TTC36 Gold Watch” or approximately 327 yards (300 metres) of chunky/bulky weight yarn.

Needles:

8mm (US 11) circular needles in at least a 24” (60cm) cord. Or whatever size needles it takes you to get gauge.

Notions:

Whatever you prefer to block your shawls and whichever tools you use to weave in ends.

Gauge:

9 stitches and 18 rows = 4” (10cm) square worked flat in garter and blocked.

Size:

70” (178cm) measured along the wingspan.
20” (51cm) measured down deepest part of the crescent.

Glossary:

K - Knit (K2 = Knit 2 stitches)
P - Purl (P2 = Purl 2 stitches)
YO - Yarn Over
KYOK - Knit, Yarn Over, Knit into the same stitch.
WS - Wrong Side
RS - Right Side
sts - Stitches
KFB - Knit into the Front and Back of a stitch