Thanks for all your supportive comments about the Partnership Celebration, everyone! Reading them makes me excited to get cracking on my dress, and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. But for now, a little something different...
Meet the Plumeria Shawl, my second commission for the lovely Erin over at Eat Sleep Knit. It's my tribute to tropicalia in the gray and stormy Portland November: the central lace motif reminds me of the petals of the plumeria bloom, my grandmother's favorite flower and the ones most commonly strung together by the lei sellers on Oahu.
The yarn is whispery soft: luscious Malabrigo Lace in the Applewood colorway, which reminds me of pink flower-petals just beginning to brown at the end of summer, of the yellowing pages of old books and the browning lace of old-fashioned school dresses. The glass seed beads add a bit of glamor, and increase the drape of the finished shawl.
I know that I'm notoriously bad at estimating this, but I think that Plumeria is one of my more beginner-friendly patterns. The hardest thing about it is that the central lace motif does have patterning on both the right and wrong sides, but said patterning is pretty minimal, and easily memorized. The bead pattern, as you can see, is also a simple diagonal, with a new line of beads being added every other time you start a new repeat of the lace pattern. The beading only happens on the right side, so the wrong-side rows are still quite restful. It all strikes me as quite pleasingly logical, so I hope that others agree!
Plumeria just went out to the subscribers in Erin's Malabrigo Projects club, along with their portions of Malabrigo and their boxes of beads, and it's exclusive to the club for just a few more months. Come January, though, it and the Vine Bolero will be up for sale in the pattern store at Eat Sleep Knit, so anyone will be able to snag a copy.
Funny little dog not included.
