Lorelei’s Looking Glass

I released a pattern all the way back in July and … oops! … I forgot to mention it here.

The pattern, Lorelei’s Looking Glass, is an asymmetrical shawl made from two skeins of fingering-weight (read: sock) yarn.

This one has quite a backstory. It all starts with the yarn.

Back in February, I was taking part in the #FiberuaryChallenge over on Instagram, and one of the challenges prompted me to post a picture of myself from a couple of years ago, when I had what I called my Mermaid hair.

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This hair color was the result of a fun expedition into my hairstylist’s dye cabinet, followed by very precise instructions on where and how I wanted the various colors interlaid. I couldn’t have been happier with the result: several shades of teal, blue, and green flowing into a beautiful deep purple at the bottom.

Flash back to February and that Instagram post: My friends Duane and Josh, the Louisiana Yarn Guys, saw the picture and it inspired them to dye a new colorway. We had a few emails back and forth, talking about colors, and after not very much time at all, Duane produced this, the LYG colorway Devious Mermaid:

That was instant love for me right there. All my favorite colors, in a yarn that had been specially dyed just for me! Does it get any better than that, in knitting? (I guess actually it does, because the same yarn is available for everyone to buy, and I think that is actually better.)

Duane and Josh sent me a skein to play with. I decided to create a mosaic shawl worked with a neutral contrast so the hues of the mermaid skein would really pop. I had certain ideas in mind, but as often happens, I started swatching and things went in a different direction.

I wanted the shawl to mimic the way sunlight reflects on ripples in the ocean; always changing, alternating between brightness and the colors of the water. But the motifs I first planned to use weren’t quite right for this yarn, so I kept trying others. In the end what really drew me in was the combination of many different mosaic motifs — some simple, some complex — in a certain part of the swatch. So I turned that combination into a pattern, added some great details like a built-in I-cord to hide the contrast color yarn (because I would hate myself if I had to keep cutting and rejoining yarns and weaving in 10,000 ends, and I think you would hate me for that, too), and wound up with a shawl that I’ve been wearing everywhere ever since.

This shawl may look complex, but mosaic is actually one of the easiest ways to work colorwork. All of the motifs are worked using just one color per row and different combinations of slipped stitches. If Lorelei’s Looking Glass appeals to you as much as it does me, you can purchase the pattern here on my website, or on Ravelry.