November 2, 2022 - The STOL Shawl
It was the end of February and I saw a knitting design contest for shawls in an issue of an online magazine (The Knitting Guild Association). I usually don’t knit shawls…but the contest was called “Flight Plan” and that caught my eye since I have a friend who’s a pilot. I’ve never been on a plane but I was learning a lot about aircraft and learning all the “aircraft speak” and I learned my friend’s plane is a short take-off and landing plane, or “STOL” for short. A STOLE is another word for shawl so I, of course, got inspired just by that word play. I only had until October 1st to come up with a design and although that may seem like lots of time for some people, to me it wasn’t nearly long enough to design, test knit (probably several times), fix any mistakes and then knit and finish my final design. But I decided to get started anyway. Life is busy but I was going to give it my best shot.
So next I needed to come up with a unique design. My friend had a bird logo for his plane so I knew I wanted to do something with wings or feathers. I went online and started researching wing shapes and feathers and started knitting with some stash yarn I had. Nothing seemed to be going right but I thought I’m not going to stress about it. I’ll just work on it in the very little bit of spare time I have and if I don’t have it done by the deadline, so be it.
After a few failed attempts at making the design I envisioned in my mind, I thought maybe I’m overthinking all this (it wouldn’t be the first time I overthought something. LOL). I started researching different stitch designs and found a diagonal stitch in Vogue Knittings “Stitchionary Volume One Knit and Purl”. I got a bare undyed yarn from Knit Picks thinking it had great stitch definition and since it was bare, I could see my design clearly and decide on a colour later. As I knit, however, I fell in love with this undyed wool and realized that if I knit the design well enough, I could create a reversable shawl. I blocked the piece and it looked even nicer. Next, I made a bunch of different sized feathers and then picked out the size I thought best fit the overall design. I somehow instinctively knew where I wanted to attach them. I bought some wooden beads from Amazon to cover up my imperfect sewing when I attached the feathers. The beads were such a nice touch. They really completed the look I was going for.
The only problem was that it was September by the time I was getting this figured out and finalized. And, the October 1st deadline was getting closer and closer. Still, I was determined not to stress myself out over this. Life is busy and there’s many more important things in this world than entering a shawl in a contest (especially in Ontario with winter approaching). If I got it done, great. If not, I was going to be ok with that too. But somehow, I managed to get it in on September 30th, just in time for the contest.
And, then I won a judges award!!! I couldn’t be happier that I persevered and actually got it entered into the contest on time. The other award-winning shawls are so beautiful and I am so honoured to be included amongst the winning entries.
If you’d like a copy of my STOL Shawl pattern so you can knit one for yourself, head over to my shop and pick one up….
And remember, no matter what happens, just StickTo The Knitting 😊
