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Inspirations and Influences: Sunburst Shawl

You ever have a situation where you can trace exactly when a thought entered your head?  I can remember the exact moment that the idea for the Sunburst Shawl entered my head.  It was over a discussion of Fibonacci numbers and crochet, and I misspoke.  I meant to ask if it was possible to do a crochet technique in the round, and instead I said broomstick.

My friend replied she had never seen it done before, and I realized and corrected my mispeak, but the idea was then in my head.  WAS it possible?

But really, in some ways, I think the inspiration for the Sunburst Shawl goes back even further.

The Sunburst Shawl owes much of its inspiration to knitting.  Gasp!  It’s shocking, I know.

One of my favorite things to do is knit socks with the magic loop.  I’ve never been a big fan of knitting on straights, and while I like working on two circulars and did that for about a year, I started wanting my needles to have more than just one purpose.  I got into the magic loop because with a longer needle you can do big projects, but you can also use the magic loop to do small projects in knitting.

At the same time I’d also gotten interested in historical patterns, and both broomstick and hairpin lace.  Both techniques seemed like a great way to make quick crochet patterns with stunning results.  The only problem was that most people who were using these techniques were doing things similar to Doris Chan’s exploded lace.  They were working the techniques in worsted weight yarn.

I was interested in doing the work in something closer to lace-weight.  While lace is still far off from some of the weight yarn historical patterns were made in (especially with crochet) I thought it would highlight the open-ness of the broomstick stitches in a way that a thicker yarn would not.

This, combined with  the conversation I mentioned earlier in The Yarn Spot cemented the idea in my head.  It took a few months more of peculating, and a design call that spoke to me, to have everything align correctly.

I’d like to do more with the broomstick crochet in the round, both because I happen to like round things, and also because I think it’s wonderful to be able to take advantage of technologies that weren’t available before.

Besides, I like to do things that nobody else has thought to do yet.

Stories from Sunburst

Most of the work I did on making the Sunburst sample was while I was on a cruise with my grandmother back in October.  My paternal Grandmother loves traveling on cruises, but isn’t quite able to do it on her own.  So she gets her grandchildren to come with her, and we have a grand old time.  Grandma and I had decided on a cruise through the Panama Canal, from Florida to California.

Sunburst was the perfect project to do on a cruise.  Easily memorize-able, and with simple motifs, it was light enough to be on my lap as we sat outside and watched the water go by.

On one of the first nights we went to see a comedy show after dinner, and because we were nearly late getting there, the only seats were in the front.  Naturally we got singled out by the comedian, who saw that I was crocheting while he was performing.  After asking after us and what I was doing, he ragged on us a little before moving on.  From then on everyone one board the cruise knew me as “the young girl that knits/crochets.”  (It doesn’t help that I was dressed in vacation clothes, which make me look like I’m a teenager.)

It was a wonderful thing, actually, to be singled out, because it brought crafters out of the woodwork on the cruise.  So many knitters and crocheters made an effort to find me during the cruise, and we’d talk shop, knit or crochet, and admire each other’s projects.

Since Sunburst requires a set of circular knitting needles in addition to my hook, I took to sticking the circular knitting needle into my ponytail when I wasn’t using it.  It was the perfect place for it, because I wouldn’t forget to pick it up when I went to go somewhere else with my grandmother.  However, it did have the habit of making me look quite strange, with two pieces of wood connected by a plastic strand making a halo over my head.  Grandma liked to give me a hard time, teasing me about my “halo” or laughing when I got the needles caught on something because I forgot they were up there.

By the end of the cruise many of the people had watched the shawl form over the two weeks while I was there.  Many couldn’t quite imagine what it would look like when all the ends were woven in and it was blocked.

So, for any of you Holland America Cruisers out there who were aboard the Statendam with me, here’s the finished product.  I told you it would look better when it was done.

Sunburst Shawl on Tangled Magazine

I am proud to announce the publication of Sunburst Shawl on Tangled online Magazine.  I was so excited I just couldn’t wait until tomorrow to let everyone know.

Sunburst Shawl
by Jennifer Crowley

Price:

$5.00
Materials:
Yarn: Western Sky Knits Aspen Sock (100% Superwash Merino; 400 yards [365 m] /3.5oz [100 gm]; CYCA 2): Misty Moor, 2 (3, 4) skeins.
Hook: C/2 (2.75mm)
Adjust hook size to obtain correct gauge.
Needles: US size 17 (12 mm) 40 or 47” circular knitting needle.

Notions: Tapestry needle; seed beads that fit your chosen yarn doubled through it (98 beads for small, 110 beads for medium, 130 beads for large); dental floss threader or small crochet hook that fits through beads.

Craft:
Crochet
Difficulty: expertGauge: One motif = 3.25” diameter blocked.
Available Sizes:
small, medium, large
Measurements:
small = 45” x 18”
medium = 52” x 21”
large = 58” x 24”
Photos by Brittany Tyler