My knitting brain is fully ready for fall knits, while the weather (until today) has been mostly ridiculously scorchingly hot and humid here in Arkansas. Shown here are the wee beginnings of a Nightshift by Andrea Mowry.

I’ve admired this shawl for some time and finally decided to go for it. The yarn is Dream State by Spincycle yarns, and this pattern is made for it. Each skein has its own color shifts while the shawl continuously shifts colors as well. So meta.

I think this is going to be a really satisfying knit, and something I hope to wear a lot in the fall and winter. I had to go down two needle sizes to get gauge. I normally wouldn’t worry about gauge so much in a shawl, but the pattern cautions that each skein is mostly used up by the shawl and stresses the importance of gauge for that reason.

I love these colors. I went very close to the exact color scheme for the sample, swapping out one brownish yarn for another I liked slightly better, and swapping the final yarn. The sample version had one called Nostalgia that had lots of maroon tones. I opted for Cataclysm, which has deep greens, yellow greens, bits of brown, and hints of blue. The colors I chose left to right and top to bottom (the order I’m using) are Melancholia, Mississippi Marsala, Deep Bump, Salty Dog, Rusted Rainbow, and Cataclysm.

My brain is still learning the pattern. I’m only on the second section and I believe it will click into place later and I won’t have to look at the row by row instructions for long. Right now it’s still the beginning and I’m mostly working on it in the evening when my brain is really tired, so I’m very happy that there are row by row instructions.

I have grand plans to also start a Soldotna Crop and a third (in my knitting history) Still Light Tunic soon. I have yarns for them in my stash, and I’m trying to strike before the inspiration wanes and I get distracted by something else. The Still Light will satisfy my need for endless amounts of stockinette that I can knit at work, and the Soldotna Crop will probably be super fun and addictive to knit. I can’t wait! But I’m also trying to make myself stay focused on the things already on the needles…. Catchfly hasn’t seen action in at least a week and I need to remedy that.

Anyone else suffering from startitis?