Are you ready for a mysterious knitting adventure?

Feel like a designer as you knit through each section, not knowing where you’ll end up. It’s exciting, isn’t it?

The Vineyard Mystery Knitalong is a shawl pattern of secret shape and design, to be published in 6 installments starting September 4th & 5th, 2024. You’ll receive one clue a week, every Wednesday, each with instructions for creating the next section of the shawl.

I’ll be hosting the MKAL online AND in person, at Maker Savvy in Kanata, Ontario, Canada. If you live nearby, join us for the live events by signing up at makersavvy.ca. We’ll kick off the series at Kin Vineyards in Carp, with a wine tasting, gourmet pizza made with local ingredients, and a murder! (Cue dramatic music… dah dah DAAAAAAH)

All the in-person knitters will be entertained by a chapter of a murder-mystery story that Wendy of Maker Savvy is adapting for us from a free online murder-mystery party outline. Since we’re not entirely sure about the copyright laws of using the free outline in a published pattern, I’m not going to include Wendy’s story with the mkal pattern. Apologies.

So, online, the mkal will be a normal, super-fun, murderless, mysterious knitting pattern. :)

Now, about the pattern itself:

If I told you, I’d have to… well, you know the old joke. (In case you don’t, the answer is “kill you.” “I’d have to kill you.” But of course I never would because that would be incredibly rude.)

The pattern will be a shawl, and it will use 7 colours. It will include stitches in various combinations, and it will be written for all skill levels to follow. You might learn a few new things along the way, and I will include complete instructions for every technique, but there will NOT be brioche. (I love brioche! But Wendy thought I should tone it down a little for this particular project. She’s probably not wrong.)

About the Yarn:

You guys. I am super into seasonal colour palette analysis lately. Have you seen this on Insta? I blame my bff, who started me down this rabbit hole, but really, I’m having a blast.

I’ve been dressing in my colours, and I feel so good! And I reeeeeally wanted a yarn kit in my seasonal colours. So… (cue heraldic trumpet notes)… Wendy and I worked with Kat’s Riverside Studio, and they let me put together the colour kits for the pattern from Kat’s gorgeous selection of hand-dyed yarns.

You can order the kits online from makersavvy.ca. If you follow the Classes link to the Murder Mystery KAL, you’ll find the yarn link there, too.

The Winter Colour Palette:
Clear, cool, high-contrast
MC: noir
Minis: ghost, marylou, chartreuse, cone flower, lapis, and celestial

The Summer Colour Palette:
Cool, muted, soft
MC: faded jeans
Minis: verdigris, rindle, marsh, ballet, wisp, sugar plum

The Spring Colour Palette:
Clear, warm, bright
MC: beryl
Minis: kelpie, lagoon, lipstick, chartreuse, coral, flamingo

The Autumn Colour Palette:
Warm, muted, deep
MC: neptune
Minis: berry, hunter, ochre, russet, moss, mahogany

To make your own yarn kit from stash:

Fingering weight sock yarn. My sample is knit in a multi-ply yarn, not singles. I recommend a multi-ply yarn for this particular pattern because it will provide you with a similar stitch definition. But if you want to mix yarn types, that can be fun, too.

MC: 115 g / 440 y / 402 m
Minis: 6 x 25 g / 110 y / 101 m (total 150 g / 660 y / 606 m)

To make a large size, double everything.

Colour Advice:

As long as your MC stands out against all your Minis, you should be fine. Some of my kit colours (particularly Summer) have lower contrast levels on purpose, to provide a more muted, hazy appearance to the colour blends.

The MC will be used throughout the entire project, with the Minis playing and running around in various ways and combos. So, the MC will set the overall background tone, and the Minis will affect it in various ways depending on how they’re blended.

Visit my website for more specific colourway advice, if you’d like some guidance on choosing colours. https://aknitica.com

In-Person Murdery Mystery KAL at Maker Savvy & Kin Vineyards:

Kick-Off Event - September 4, 2024, at Kin Vineyards. Details when you sign up.
Weekly Classes & Knitalongs: every Tuesday, either afternoon or evening (your choice), starting September 10, 2024, for 5 sessions at Maker Savvy.

Online Mystery KAL:

Kick-Off pattern clue drop - Wednesday, September 4, 2024 at 11pm (or whenever I arrive home from the Vineyard if I can’t automate it).
Following 5 pattern clues - every Wednesday morning

You can pre-order from Ravelry at any time, and you’ll receive each pattern update directly to your inbox as they’re released.

To knitalong together online, use the hashtag #vineyardmkal and tag me at aknitica on Instagram. Feel free to ask me for colour advice there, too!

For more information, see:
https://makersavvy.ca/class/mystery-knit-a-long-mkal/