Projects
Summer Shawl Time Starts Now!
Let’s say the past fall and winter have been a glorious season of sweaters for you. Perhaps you got caught up in knitalongs fomented by persistent whipper-uppers, or you made a Rhinebeck, a Vogue Knitting Live, or an Edinburgh sweater, for vicarious or actual trips to those hootenannies. You had a fabulous time, and you’ve got beautiful sweaters to show for it.
In early May, you may find yourself with a mild case of All Sweatered Out. As you cast around for your next knit, you find it difficult to contemplate another stitch pattern chart, or another decrease-every-seventh-row.
That’s kind of how I feel. Thanks to our back-to-back Norah Gaughan and Isabell Kraemer knitalongs, I have two great sweaters that actually fit my body. I’m proud and pleased, and I know other sweater patterns (March Mayhem!) will start calling to me again, and soon.
But right now? I want some easy-peasy, soul-satisfying knitting. Something I can memorize quickly and carry around with me like a lovey. A slow roll of a WIP that I can wad up into a ball and use as a lumbar pillow if need be. Something that involves color play, but just one color at a time, please.
Enter Kirsten Kapur
Kirsten Kapur is here to help. A New Yorker who loves to layer, Kirsten excels at designing this kind of easy-knitting, beautiful-wearing accessory. (She even designed one for us: the perennial favorite Colorwash Scarf in MDK Field Guide No. 3: Wild Yarns.)
A few years ago, at my first Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Jill Draper helped me pick out different shades of her (now discontinued) fingering weight wool Esopus, for Kirsten’s Fort Tryon Wrap.
My request was for “something kind of Missoni.” Jill delivered. Her choices sang.
I was eager to get going on that wrap. I wound my new Esopus in the car and knit on the long center strip all the way home to New York.
It took a while to lay down all that garter stitch that summer, and I loved every minute of it. Now it’s one of my favorite wrappy things, in all seasons, and one of the few big shawls I’ve knit that I’ve not given away. Fort Tryon is Mine All Mine; immune from Kon Mari.
I highly recommend this pattern, and I’ll tell you something: Esopus is gone, but Mohonk Light is the legitimate heir to its throne. If anything, Mohonk Light is even lovelier. In addition to the rich, nuanced color, it’s got the nicest spring, and a cottony feel. I’ve just finishing knitting three skeins of the stuff into my Bottom Line Pullover, and I’m not one little bit tired of Mohonk Light. We are a duo.
So: if you’re looking for a great easy knit to take with you everywhere all summer long, make a Fort Tryon Wrap in Mohonk Light. That’s my advice.
But wait, there’s more! Fort Tryon has a new baby sibling: Bradford Road. And Kirsten designed it specifically for Mohonk Light.
Bradford Road is calling to me, with its exuberant stripes and fun miters. It uses just a single skein of each of its colors—pick five colors—there are lots of possible combos in the MDK Shop.
Take a look:
Charred Coal.
Midnight.
Sagebrush.
Wet Bluestone.
Bering.
Bone.
Mourning Dove.
Trillium.
A Note on Quantities
Get your own Missoni on, while supplies last. We have good stock on several colors, and are low on others. The next batch of Mohonk Light is still walking around on the backs of sheep for another few days. We will not be able to replenish our stock until this fall at the earliest. That’s the way it goes with farm-to-needle yarns. If you miss them this time, they’re worth the wait!
Kudos on proper spelling and usage of “hootenannies.”
Now I’m wondering how else you could spell hootenannies.
I love the colors in the new shawl. Could you list them for me, as I’d like to use the same colors?
Click on the Ravelry link and the colors are listed. They’re so lovely.
Thanks!
When you live in the northeast US, summer shawls and wraps are an evening necessity. Bradford Road has been calling to me since March Mayhem!
Shawls are a necessity in over-air-conditioned Texas as well!
I love this one! It’s been talking to me since I saw it during March Mayhem.
Oh the pattern, the colors, the yarn!!!! I need a knitters version of “had we but world enough and time” To a Coy Mistress of knitting temptations?
Dear Kay, I don’t have the budget for a Ft.Tryon in Mohonk Light, as tempting as it is, akthough maybe one day in a less luxurious yarn. After all, there are some days when you just want COLOR! Which brings me to your Kaffe Fassett shawl as pictured in the new Vogue. My eye jumped there immediately. I do love Kirsten Kapur. She is wonderful and your post is about her shawl. But just had to give a shout out about the Vogue article and didn’t know where else to place it.
Looks like the colors I want are gone. I’ll have to wait until they’re restocked.
Wow — the colors make it.
I’ve knit two of her (early) patterns, had gauge, and ran out of yarn. Made me kindof leery …. but I know I will dip my needles again. Experience has also taught me that some yarns are skeined “underweight.” Sadly, it isn’t like sewing where I can buy an extra half a yard …. but I am cautious at times, as who likes to play yarn chicken?
Also met Kristen, once, in a yarn store in Morristown, now sadly defunct (Trillium?) (it was on a NJ Wool Walk). She was lovely.
After the eye catching headline “Summer Shawl time starts now” scrolling down and seeing the Ft. Tyron shawl…I ran out the door, with my iPad to make it to my LYS before they closed Saturday afternoon. Knowing I would NEED this for my Sunday relaxation…
The staff all assisted with yarns colors and winding everything!!! I’m pretty sure i was like an addict getting a fix… but the yarn, the colors, the promise of a light summer project were all worth it.
Thank you!!