Here is April’s stunning design for Boost Your Knitting: The Sterlyn Shawl by Joji Locatelli! Joji’s beautiful shawl uses three skeins of Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply. Joji used Charcoal, Water and Glisten for this design – all of which are available in our online shop. Don’t forget that Boost subscribers have a 10% discount code in the Welcome Pack pdf.

I made contact with Joji after we both featured in an episode of the Fruity Knitting podcast over a year ago, and I was utterly delighted when she enthusiastically agreed to create a shawl for Boost Your Knitting. Joji has a beautiful design aesthetic – simple knits with elegant details. If you haven’t already browsed her designs on Ravelry, then do head over there and take a look. I’m currently working on her Granito sweater as well as my own colourway of Sterlyn, and absolutely loving both. I’ve slowed down slightly on my Granito because I don’t really want the knitting to end!

Joji lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and we have a lovely interview with her for you to read later this month. As well as designing awesome knitwear, sewing, parenting and travelling, she also finds time (I’m not sure when!) to record a lovely podcast: Joji’s Journal. I’m so excited to see everyone’s Sterlyn shawls popping up on Ravelry, Instagram and elsewhere!

Shawls don’t have to be just for smart occasions. I often wear them with jeans and a (striped) T-shirt, or over a simple tunic and leggings. I hope you’ll get plenty of wear from your Sterlyns.

This month we roll up our sleeves and dive deep into a technique that can change your relationship with your knitting. We are going to drop a pattern repeat in a lace design, and pick it back up again.

Yes, we really are!

The number of rows you choose to drop is entirely up to you. If you’re feeling uncertain about it, then start small. Add a lifeline – there are instructions in the photo tutorial pdf, or you can watch our video tutorial over on YouTube. Then just work one more row, and as you work the following row, you can try dropping just one row and knitting it back up. If that goes well, then try again later on, this time dropping two or maybe four rows. The beauty of using a lifeline is that if you get into a pickle, then you can take out your knitting needles, and rip back to the lifeline, safe in the knowledge that all your work is effectively “backed up”.

I dropped a good number of rows for the photo tutorials, and having all the strands of yarn pinned out of the way (in order!) makes it so much easier to keep track of what you’re doing. The shawl in the photo tutorial and video tutorial is in my zingy colourway (Teal, Ultramarine and Magenta). We have had fun playing with possible colour combinations, as Scrumptious 4ply is such a beautiful yarn. Here are mine and Joji’s as well as another possibility.

The knitalong in our Ravelry group is now open. You can join in whether you have purchased Boost Your Knitting or not – we always aim for our knitalongs to be as inclusive as possible. The video tutorials are available for free on our YouTube channel, and you can knit any lace design, in any yarn, as you participate. We have lots of knitters in our knitalong threads for whom English isn’t their first language. There are a good number of people in the group who speak French, German, Italian and Spanish just for starters. Most conversation ends up being in English, but don’t hesitate to post in another language if that’s easier for you. :)

You can sign up for Boost Your Knitting at anytime for just £30, which includes twelve patterns, from twelve fantastic designers, designed to teach twelve featured techniques (with plenty of bonus ones along the way!) and a 10% discount in the online shop through 1 Sept 2019 (excluding kits) . The price also includes worldwide shipping of the Boost Your Knitting print book in September 2019. And if you do decide to cast on a shawl and aren’t a member of the Ravelry group already, do call in, introduce yourself, and share your progress!

All images in this blog post are © Jesse Wild. And many thanks to my great friend and fellow Frome knitter, Sue, for agreeing to model for us.