Welcome Maypole!

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope it’s pleasant wherever you are. Here in New Orleans, we’re expecting a tropical storm. As wild as these can be, I’m kind of looking forward to a quiet weekend indoors while the weather rages without. Outside of an early brunch tomorrow and church on Sunday, I’m free to stay in and catch up on some work and hopefully, some personal knitting. I’ve been knitting to deadlines at breakneck speed as well as keeping up a pretty active social calendar and frankly, I’ll be glad of a rest! Today, however, the sun is shining and the world is all decked out in springtime. It’s a great day to release a brand new shawl pattern, Maypole! I’d like to thank Tipsy Knitter Shayla C. for her beautiful work testing and sample knitting this pattern. You are extraordinary!

If you know me, you know that I have very warm feelings for Manos del Uruguay Alegria. It’s gentle and sweet to knit; it makes for long wearing socks, yet possesses a really lovely drape for shawls and garments. I’ve been hoarding a single skein in the Macachines colorway for a long, long time. I fell in love with this magical springtime mix of colors back at Rosehaven when I religiously picked up every possible colorway available in the soft and tender Alegria. When I began to gather materials for the Merry Month of May theme that featured this season’s trendy florals, I thought this precious skein would be perfect.

The Maypole Shawl is an easy, semi-circular shawl that begins with a gentle stockinette body. Increases worked every other right side row at 8 points across the shawl produce an almost half-moon shape that is deep and snugly at the center and gently tapered at the points. Evenly spaced increases create very pretty directional shaping lines that put me in mind of a spider’s web or the spokes of a wheel. Enter my coveted Macachines in a whimsical lace pattern of big polka dots floating in mesh, pretty to look at and fun to knit. To finish, an exuberant loop-the-loop edging of I-cord creates a clever scallop.

I hope you like it! And just in case you’ve got a little personal knitting time set aside this weekend, I’m offering the Maypole Shawl free for the first 24-hours! Just head over to my Ravelry shop, pop the shawl into your shopping cart and enter the coupon code MERRYMONTH4 at checkout. Then cast on! (Feel free to share a link to this page with your friends, but please don’t give out the coupon code. It helps me a lot when folks come here to visit.) If you like these little discounts (I usually offer them on Friday mornings) and are interested in my work, I’d love to see you over at the new Ravelry group Friends of Littlechurch Knits. Until we meet again, happy knitting!

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