Diamante Shawl

So...
I bought this single skein of yarn in December. It's just wonderfully lovely. A beautiful mixture of grays, purples, and soft lavender. It's 80% Lambswool, 10% Cashmere and 10% Angora, DK weight. Created by J. Knits in the color Tampa. Sinfully soft and squishy, unfortunately discontinued, and bought on clearance. I cannot wait to do something with it.

But...

I, for the life of me, could not find the right thing! You know when you try 2 or 3 patterns and it just doesn't feel right or look right. You begin to realize it's just not the project for that particular picky skein of yarn. I have grown to trust that feeling. It is usually correct. So I wait. I stalk Ravelry like the Paparazzi. I'm always looking.

Now, I'm a big fan of this particular vintage knitting blog called By Gum, By Golly. Gosh, she does some incredible knitting! She is my mentor! Plus I love her vintage bravery and sewing panache. Anyway, she has some wonderful projects on her Ravelry page and that's where I found "the One".

The Adamas Shawl by mimknits aka Miriam L. Felton. 

It was hidden in Tasha's projects under the name Adamas Neckerchief. She only had a small amount of yarn leftover and wanted something to finish it up with. I read through her notes and decided I loved the pattern.

Now, I didn't have the necessary skeins of yarn to complete the entire shawl, but I had enough that I could knit at least a neckerchief or a slightly wider version of the shawl. I had 300 yds. The pattern calls for 700-850 yds. That's a slightly wider neckerchief to me. That's why this was tempting. I only had one skein, but with Tasha's notes I felt brave enough to tweak the pattern to fit my smaller amount of yarn.

So I began. I decided to use Tasha's size 7 needles to open up the stitches a little bit. I liked how her pictures looked when the finished piece was blocking. The pattern uses charts to lay out the stitch pattern. I have been practicing lace knitting for some time and found this one very easy to understand and follow. There are 4 stitch markers you use for reference. Two are used to mark the K2 stitches at the ends of the shawl and the other 2 are placed on either side of the K1 in the center. I found them helpful. They reminded me of where I was in the pattern and how many more times I needed to repeat. You can see the K1 row really well in these photos below:

The pattern creates the most beautiful diamond shapes. 

The Adama shawl gets its name from the Greek language meaning "indomitable" or "untamable". Actually, to be honest, another reason I was drawn to it was because I just loved the TV series "Battlestar Galactica" and Commander Adama rocked my science fiction world! Adama - means indomitable! So very fitting!

Ooooo, diamonds!

I chose to name my neckerchief/shawl after the Italian word for diamond, Diamante. 

Sounds very chic doesn't it? 

And now, the Diamante Shawl / Neckerchief / whatever...

That purple/grey/lavender yarn changes colors in the light. 

The colors are more true to the picture below. A warmer purple versus a cooler purple.

~~

And, of course, a few gratuitous selfies.

This is how I like to wear it. No granny shawls just yet.

~Amimommy