Good morning and happy Friday to you. I have been bursting with the news of today’s topic, and I’m so excited to share it with you. I also wanted to tell you a bit about last week’s DFW Fiber Fest.

A Match Made in Heaven

A few months ago, I discovered Dawn Barker’s amazing assigned pooling patterns. She has done something completely new in the world of knitting and created patterns where you knit along with the main colorway until you come to the accent color, and then you do something completely different.

I realized what a fantastic thing it would be to combine her assigned pooling patterns and my Starry Night colorway. I did some initial experiments with changing around the colorway from the original Ikat version to the version I made for assigned pooling.

Here’s the original Ikat version shown on Sock Perfection:

Here’s the new version I dyed for assigned pooling:

As you can see, the Ikat version has short bands of yellow whereas the assigned pooling version has all the yellow in one section of the yarn, which is what is needed for Dawn’s assigned pooling patterns.

After dyeing up the assigned pooling version of my Starry Night colorway, I asked my friend Natalie (@KnittingwithNatalie on Instagram) if she would knit up a sample shawl because there aren’t enough hours in the day. She experimented some with Dawn’s different patterns, and together we decided that the Float pattern would be perfect for Starry Night.

Well, it’s one thing to have an idea in your mind, and it’s quite another to actually see it come to fruition. I was just amazed by how beautiful the shawl turned out!

Now I finally get to share it with you! Here is the shawl:

Here are the shawl and the yarn together:

I had the shawl on a mannequin during the DFW Fiber Fest last weekend (more about that below), and the thing that made me so happy was that I heard so many people say, “That looks like Starry Night,” as they passed by!

Here are a few more photos of the yarn and the shawl:

I had the new Starry Night colorway available for the first time at the festival, and I sold out of all the skeins I had dyed up on the first day, so I set up a preorder. If you would like to make your own Starry Night Float Shawl, you’ll need three skeins of Starry Night to make it. You can order them right here.

I’ll keep the preorder open through October 8th or until I run out of yarn. After that I’ll have all the yarn dyed up and mailed off by October 20th if not a little sooner.

You can order Dawn Barker’s Float pattern through her website, www.barkerwool.com, or through Ravelry.

Once you get used to the florets, the pattern isn’t difficult. It’s just a lot of fun to knit!

More about the DFW Fiber Fest

As I mentioned, I was at the DFW Fiber Fest last weekend. It was the first time I had taken part in it and the first time it had happened since 2019. I was really impressed by how well organized everything was and just how kind all the organizers and volunteers were. There were about 90 vendors plus classes, so it was a big event, and many people had driven from more than a few hours away to attend it.

The only downside of being a vendor at a yarn and fiber festival is that you don’t get to take part in the classes, but I got to hear how great they were from many people. I also got to meet some of my regular customers in person. One of those is Susan, who took a pin weaving class. She was kind enough to share some of her woven cloth with me. Here are three squares that she wove on a 4-inch pin loom:

She used my Copper Roof colorway for all three. The top is dyed on Stained Glass Sock, the middle is dyed on Sock Perfection, and the bottom is dyed on Squiggle Sock. I’m so grateful to Susan for sharing these with me so I can share all three with you and show you how different each base turned out.

The other really fun thing about the festival was getting to see everyone in their beautiful handmade shawls and sweaters and also getting to meet some other fiber artists in person for the first time. I hope to taking part in it again next year.

I think that’s everything for this week. Have a great week. I hope you find some time to knit, crochet, spin, weave, felt or all of the above this week!