Jujuy Shawl

The Jujuy Shawl designed by Joji Locatelli is a crescent shaped shawl which is one of my favourite shawl styles. They drape beautifully when you’re wearing them.

I always bring a knitting project with me when I go on holiday, although usually I think I’ll have more knitting time than I do, and invariably bring at least one back up project too many. The Jujuy Shawl was my holiday knitting project when we went to Brittany to visit my sister and brother-in-law this time last year. It is hard to believe it was a year ago. I got on well with the shawl while I was away and had made the transition to the final sea green before I came home.

But of course, once we were home, I started thinking about all the knitting projects that needed to be finished before Christmas and the shawl got set aside. Then Christmas arrived, and in the New Year, I decided it was time to finish some of the UFO’s which were languishing in various states of completion. I only had the final colour to finish on the Jujuy Shawl so it was the first project to be chosen.

I used 3 colours to knit the shawl. The palest is a natural undyed Merino 4 ply, the middle colour is subtle dove grey, which contrasts beautifully with the sea green. Both of these are from my Merino 4 ply hand dyed yarn range. Before starting this shawl I swatched several different colour combinations showing how they would look in blocks of colour transitioning through stripes. One of my favourites was the natural, dove grey, and sea green combination. And I felt they also kept the pale to medium to dark transition of Joji’s original natural toned Jujuy Shawl.

I made a couple of tweaks when I was knitting the shawl which basically resulted in wider sections of the mesh pattern. I felt that this caused the striped section to be a little too narrow so I added 6 more garter ridges into this. All of these little changes resulted in a larger deeper crescent shawl. It did mean that by the time I was nearing the picot bind off the rows were very long (and, no, I didn’t bother counting all the stitches).

Although the shawl was finished towards the end of January, I didn’t wet block it until mid June, and it was only when it was pinned out on the mats that I noticed a little mistake. There is one yarnover where there shouldn’t be a yarnover. I’ve decided I can live with this!

I love everything about this shawl design, from the engaging pattern, to the calming colours, and the elegant beauty of the finished Jujuy Shawl.

June had some wonderfully balmy sunny days this year and it was on one of these that I carried my mannequin outside to photograph the shawl. Our garden always looks its best in June with so many of the plants and shrubs in bloom. It was a pleasure to spend time sitting outside enjoying a cup of tea and reading a knitting magazine after I’d finished photographing the shawl! Particularly lovely, with the scent of the Mock Orange Blossom and the David Austen Roses perfuming the garden. (These are some of the David Austen roses we planted in the spring).