I love a big cosy triangular shawl! And I love designing in green. So perhaps it's no surprise that I designs a big cosy green triangular shawl for Something New to Learn About Lace...

My Bithynica shawl is worked out from the back neck, starting with a garter tab cast on (more on that method to come...), and then increases are worked at each end and in the centre of the right side rows. This creates the triangular shape, and the increases are continued throughout the body of the shawl. Garter stitch is then replaced with a Tulip Lace pattern that uses double yarn overs to make the larger holes at the top of each flower. A slim garter stitch border completes the body, before a toothy lace edging is knitted on to finish things off. The lace edging also features double yarn overs and a cheeky yarn over at the start of one of the rows (photo tutorials in the book walk you through how to do both of these).

I hope that Bithynica will be a fun knit to complete the set of patterns in Something New to Learn About Lace. They are arranged in order of roughly increasing complexity, but none of the designs is massively complicated, and each has been created with newer lace knitters in mind.

I love to wear triangular shawls all year round. In the summer they are great for keeping the cool evening breeze off my shoulders, and in winter I wear them with the point facing forwards and wrapped around to fill in that triangle at the top of my chest that my winter coat doesn't quite cover.

I'm so pleased with how the finished fabric looks – this was exactly the smooth, well-defined lace and texture that I was hoping for when we started work on creating our own yarn range. The garter stitch is really cosy and has all those great qualities of a woolly-wool, but with the alpaca bringing a lovely dollop of softness to the mix. I'm sure I've already said how nicely it blocks, but here's a photo to demonstrate what I mean when I say that:

The mini-Aphaca-scarf on top is fresh off the needles, whilst the full blanket below has been soaked and stretched, before being left to dry. The transformation in the fabric is just lovely! Blocking smooths everything out, and brings the lace patterning to life. And if you haven't had to block a piece of lace knitting before, fear not! We have included photo tutorials in the book, and there will be a couple of video tutorials too. All the equipment you need for blocking your projects is also available in our online shop: Lace blocking accessories

Bithynica uses four skeins of Something to Knit With 4ply, and the sample was made in the Lawn shade. I love this shade of grass-green, but there are nine other options to choose from if your colour preferences lie elsewhere on the colour spectrum! We have Bithynica shawl yarn kits available that give you a small discount on the yarn, as well as a Something New to Learn project bag, and these cost £30.00 (don't forget you'll need a copy of the book as well – unfortunately we can't bundle them together as they are taxed differently).

If you fancy adding my Bithynica shawl to your favourites or queue on Ravelry, you'll find the pattern page here: Bithynica shawl by Jen Arnall-Culliford

The Something New to Learn About Lace Knitalong will run through July and August over in our friendly and knowledgeable Ravelry group. All lace projects are welcome, whether they are from our book or elsewhere, as are works in progress. It's all about the taking part! Oh, and the prizes...

Thank you so much to everyone who has already ordered our new book and kits. We have had a lot of fun working on this collection, and I hope it's OK to say that I'm really pleased with how it has all come together. We couldn't do it alone, and I'm particularly grateful to Donna and Martina for making fantastic designs in our new yarn, Jeni and Andy at Chester Wool for helping us to develop the yarn, Jim for being prepared to dive head-first into the world of knitting, Jesse Wild for his amazing photos (all the photos in this post are © Jesse Wild) and last but by no means least, to Nic for bringing everything together to make it into a fabulous book.

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