The weather is hot, focusing is hard, and the constant onslaught of Bad News is wearing us all down, I feel ya babe. That’s why it’s time for something sweet and easy. You can buy new yarn, or you can use what you have. You can even scrap it up if that’s your vibe. Best of all? There is very little actual focus required. A precious commodity these days.

This is the Abracadabra shawl – which is Catalan for “warm Hug” :) Here’s a little peek into what I was thinking when I put this baby together:

1. I’m not the biggest fan of yarn overs to increase at the spine of a shawl, unless it’s an openwork shawl. I end up feeling like every minute fluctuation in my knitting tension will be magnetically drawn to express itself on that spine as an ugly dotted line of unevenly sized eyelets. And it’s cold.
   Ergo, this shawl has a closed spine with (gasp!) knit-front-and-back increases. Yeah, I could have made it a little cleaner with m1r and m1l, but I was feeling lazy. You can do it if you want, you overachiever you.
2. I have pretty much zero time where I’m left alone to think and I’m *not* working on Blue Brick related stuff. I’m my parents caregiver, so I kind of exist in the gaps between when folks are awake. There are also 5 furbabes in the house, including two huskies which, we all know, are not for the faint of heart.
   The practical upshot of all this? When I knit, I don’t want to have to think. I want my hands to flow through the work while I watch Vikings and think about big muscle men and gorgeous shield maidens kicking ass.
3. I am fashionably incompetent. Did I put on lipgloss? Girl, I’m not even sure I put on deodorant. Do my shoes match my purse? Only if Tito dressed me (which he does, when circumstances require me to look good).
   Whatever I make can’t require any flair or flounce to look good. It had to be cuddly and unfussy. I want to feel like I’m carrying around my own security blanket. I understand it’s not socially acceptable (or practical) to hide from axe murderers beneath the shawl, build forts out of the shawl or wet the shawl down and use it to flick someone else, but that’s ok. In the right mood I’ll do it anyway. I can certainly use a shawl to hide from, say, an unpleasant colleague. What’s that? I work from home? My household are my colleagues? See point above re: huskies.
4. Finally, it’s gotta be flexible. I sell 500, 800, 1200 and 1600 yard shawl balls. If you don’t get to use at least 90% of your gradient, what’s the point? Therefore, I love shawls with repeatable motifs, charts that can be worked more than once, and sections where you can knit until you run out. Use up every last precious yard of that yarn.

If you want your own super flexible, axe-murderer-proof shawl, you can check out the pattern here :) Want yarn to go with it? I’m your enabler :) Check out our store for gorgeous gradients in either ready-to-ship or pre order form.

Stay tuned for a post wherein I invent a martial art that requires only a good sized shawl and the willingness to bite when threatened.