Since it is not a secret anymore, I can finally tell you what the four skeins of Shilasdair 4ply that I got a while ago where for: the Perpendicular shawl!

Instead of doing the usual happy dance because of not only being included into the awesome PPQ but having my design on the cover as well, I wanted to tell you a little bit about the design itself and how it came to be. 

Actually, this shawl came about with one of these “What would happen if…” or specifically, “What would happen to a shawl if the direction of knitting changes halfway through?” And I’m embarrassed to tell you that my subconscious mind thought that up in a dream sometime in May last year. Yes, really. I dream of knitwear designs, that’s how knitting-crazy I am. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night because I just thought of something that needs sketching before I forget it. And that is how most of my designs start, with a sketch like this:

If you have read the pattern, you can see that it did not quite work out the way I had initially thought up. But it was a good way to start. (If you recognize the stickers, most of them were added after the drawing. My sketch book holds many things that I find pretty.)

When I saw the Call for Submissions from Pom Pom Quarterly last year in June, I thought it was ideal. I only had to write up what I had thought up and knit a little swatch and off it went. I was really nervous but in the end they chose my design and it was such a long wait until the release! And when I got the notification that my submission was accepted, it was hard not to walk up to any stranger, bounce up and down and blurt out, “My design will be in Pom Pom magazine!”

Now that the first FOs are starting to pop up on Ravelry and Instagram, I have to thank anyone who was a part of this: Shilasdair for their yarn support, the team at Pom Pom for publishing my design and my knitterly friend M. for supporting my crazy design ideas. I’m so excited to see what you create from this!